Gordon Stewart Ness was at Westminster for only two years. In The ElizabethanGrant’s House recorded that they were ‘very sorry to have lost him when he left unexpectedly in the middle of the Election Term 1902′. We don’t know whether he then enrolled at another school, but in 1904 he matriculated at Clare College, Cambridge. He also joined the 4th Battalion of the Black Watch as a volunteer. In 1909 he began working at Lloyd’s as an underwriter.

Ness married Gladys Harrison in Kensington in the spring of 1914. Soon after (in fact, considerably less than 9 months after) a son was born, Anthony Patrick Ness on 5th June. After the declaration of war Ness joined the 1st Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers and went out to the Western Front on 11th September. He was killed in action at Ypres on 10th November 1914. Gladys Ness gave birth to his second child in June 1915, a daughter named Marguerite. Gladys never recovered from the loss of her husband and their children were raised by Ness’ sister, Catherine Ann Horsley.

Ness’ son went on to marry Lady Brigid Guinness, who had formerly been married to Prince Frederick of Prussia, grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His daughter, Marguerite, married Heinz Friedrich Eberhard, Baron von Westenholz. The School has been in touch with their son, Ness’ grandson, who kindly provided us with a photograph of his grandfather. Ness is commemorated on the school’s war memorial, the Menin Gate at Ypres, the Lloyd’s of London Arch on Leadenhall Street and at his home town of Braco Castle, Dunblane.