Tag Archives: Royal Sussex Regiment

Edmund Davison

Edmund Davison’s first years at the school were spent in the shadow of his elder brother, Ralph, who was two years above him in Rigaud’s.  Once his brother had left, Edmund came into his own.  He excelled at sport, playing for the House team, initially described as a ‘useful and speedy half though not a polished player’.  He rose to the 2nd XI and finally appeared in the 1st XI in his final year at the school, receiving full pinks.  He won the 300 yard race at Athletic Sports, with a time of 36 2/5 seconds, leading most of the way and winning ‘fairly easily in average time’.

Edmund was particularly valued in the house as a recruiting sergeant for the Officer Training Corps, getting 14 boys to join in his first term alone.  He rose through the ranks here and ended his school career as the head of the school’s force, the Company Sergeant Major.  He was also appointed a monitor, Head of House and elected Head Town Boy.  His last at school was tinged with sadness though, as his elder brother was killed in action on 9th May 1915.

Edmund joined the army immediately upon leaving the school and took a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment.  He was sent to the front with the 12th Battalion in June 1916 and invalided home wounded in October 1916.  Upon his recovery, he returned to the front in July 1917.  His death was reported in The Elizabethan:

Mr. DAVISON, the youngest son of Mrs. Davison, of Gordon Square, was at the School from April 1910 to Christmas 1915. His loss is much regretted by the present generation, who remember his zeal and efficiency as an Officer of the Corps. He was wounded soon after going to the Front, but recovered and returned. We have before had to record the death of his elder brother, and we feel deeply for his widowed mother in her heavy loss.

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Geoffrey Richard Dudley Gee

Geoffrey Gee was born in Summergangs, Pinjarra, Western Australia to Raymond Gee and his wife Annie Matilda Alderson. His father was English and at some point before 1888 had emigrated to Perth, where he was Head Master of Hales School for a year.

Geoffrey was sent to school in England, joining Ashburnham House in September 1909. He was made an exhibitioner in 1910, and a King’s Scholar in 1911. Outside of term time he lived with his paternal aunt and her husband, Dr Bernard Ley, in Earl’s Court.

Geoffrey was very successful in a range of school activities. He was athletic, winning the school fives ties and was a runner up in the gymnastic competition (losing out due to a ‘lack of symmetry in some exercises’). He played cricket and football for the 1st XIs, earning full pinks after his performance in the Charterhouse football match, although ‘he dribbled much too close on to his forwards and only passed moderately’. In his final cricket season it was commented that he had ‘persevering temper, and both with bat and with ball did better than some of his critics expected’.

Gee was academic as well, winning the Phillimore prize for translation and speaking regularly at the school’s debating society – opposing a motion to restrict the franchise in this country. He performed ‘very creditably’ in the 1913 Latin Play. In his final term at the school, Election 1915, he was made a monitor.

Although Geoffrey won a place at Christ Church, Oxford, he joined 3rd Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment straight after leaving the school. He went out to the western front in August 1916, but was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps in January 1917 as an observer.

Geoffrey went up in his aeroplane near Ypres on 4th June 1917 and was never seen again. His name is on the Arras Flying Service Memorial in the Faubourg d’Amiens Cemetery.

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Richard Radford Turner

19170203_Turner,RRRichard Turner was the only son of Reverend Richard Turner, Vicar of Barnstaple, Devon, and Lydia Lucy, the daughter of Daniel Radford of Tavistock, Devon. He was born on 29th March 1896, and was sent to the school in 1910 as a King’s Scholar.

He played both cricket and football, representing the King’s Scholars as goalkeeper: he was described as doing “all that was necessary in goal, though at times rather slow in clearing”.

In the 1913 Latin play — the Andria — he played the role of Simo, and received the following review:

“The part offers such temptations to an actor to roar himself hoarse and the audience deaf, and Mr. R. R. Turner did neither of these things. He put some real emotion into Simo. His anger was the more credible, because restrained. He left himself plenty of scope within which to work up to the climax of indignation, with the result that he sustained the interest and kept his voice. Moreover his movements were easy, restful and dignified.”

Richard was an accomplished writer; he was the winner of the 1914 Duke of Devonshire’s Essay Prize that was open to all Public Schools, and he also won the Gumbleton Prize for English Verse with his poem on Icarus.

He was involved in the Officer Training Corps and shooting, and was successful in the practical examination — Certificate A — in March 1914.

He was awarded the school’s Triplett Scholarship when he left the school in December 1914, and he went on as a scholar to New College, Oxford.

He enlisted as 2nd Lieutenant, 3rd (Reserve) Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment on the 20th January 1915, and was attached to the 12th (Service) Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment. He landed at Le Havre in March 1916, but was wounded on the 9th and 27th of April. He returned to the western front in December 1916. Richard was only 20 when he was killed in action near Vlamertinghe on 3rd February 1917.

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Kenneth Overend Howard Smith-Howard

Kenneth Smith-Howard was born on Christmas Day 1892 to George Howard Smith-Howard, a wholesale stationer, of Clapham Common, and his wife Emma Susan Laura, daughter of Henry Overend Wilson, of London.

His elder brother, Henry Wilfrid Howard Smith-Howard, had already completed his time at the school, so Kenneth was following in Henry’s footsteps when he arrived up Ashburnham in 1906. Whilst at the school, he studied on the Classical side and when he left the school in 1911 to go to Pembroke College, Oxford, he intended to take holy orders.

In May 1915, Henry, who was articled to a solicitor at the time, joined the Inns of Court OTC and the following August, Kenneth had joined the same OTC. However, by this time Henry had moved on to the 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, with whom he went out to Egypt in January 1916.

On the 1st June 1916, Kenneth was made 2nd Lieutenant with the 10th (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, and went out with them to the western front on 13th July. He was involved in the Battle of the Somme, but was killed in action near Bapaume on the 18th of October 1916. His brother Henry was wounded in the war, but survived and eventually went on to become a practicing solicitor in London.

Kenneth’s return in the Oxford University Roll of Service notes that his Commanding Officer said “he was splendid”:

 

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Dallas Gerard le Doux-Veitch

19160804_DouxVietch
Dallas Gerard le Doux-Veitch from the IWM Collection

Dallas Gerard le Doux was born in Glamorgan in 1897. He took the additional name of ‘Veitch’ from his stepfather, John Gould Veitch, who married Dallas’ mother, Dorothy, when Dallas was six years old. It was natural that Dallas would attend Westminster School as his maternal uncle and stepfather were both Old Westminsters. He joined the school on 22nd September 1910 as a member of Grant’s House, the same house his stepfather had attended in the 1880s.

He also followed in his stepfather’s footsteps onto the football pitch. Veitch senior was a football Blue and played for England against Wales in 1894, scoring three goals in the match. Veitch junior was a Cricket and Football pink, captaining the Cricket 1st XI in his final year at school, 1914.

1914 was a difficult year for the family. In October, Veitch senior died, aged only 45, after problems with his health, particularly his lungs. Dallas left school in December and entered a firm of chartered accountants, perhaps wanting to help support his mother and sister. However by April 1915 he was gazetted to the Royal Sussex Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenant. In June 1916 he was attached to the 7th Battalion and went out to the western front.

He was killed in the early morning of 4th August whilst gallantly attacking a German bombing post as part of an attempt to take the town of Pozieres. He was barely nineteen years of age.

The 7th Sussex Regiment war diary entry for that day reads:

“At 3am received orders to send one company over to RATION TRENCH to get in touch with 8th Royal Fusiliers and work up to the right, also one platoon to attack Strong Point on the right, after this had been captured they were to work down RATION and get in touch with ‘A’ Coy. ‘A’ Coy went too much to the left but reached RATION TRENCH finding the Buffs already there, Col Cope, (O.C. Buffs) ordered ‘A’ Coy to push forward and take the ridge which they reached without any difficulty but were heavily counter attacked and obliged to fall back to RATION TRANCH. The platoon on the right came under heavy Machine Gun fire and were not able to capture the Strong Point. Later in the day orders were received for two Companies to attack the right of RATION TRENCH in conjunction with attack of 9th Royal Fusiliers. Two platoons were again to attack Strong Point on right from POZIERES TRENCH ‘B & ‘D’ Coy’s attacked across the open but lost direction, some however reached their objective and got in touch with 9th Royal Fusiliers. The two platoons of ‘C’ Coy were unable to capture Strong Point owing to heavy Machine Gun fire. The result of this operation was that practically the whole of RATION TRENCH was captured and consolidated. Casualties during this two days, 2nd Lts WOOD & LE DOUX VEITCH killed, 2nd Lt’s COOKE, FITZSIMONS & ROLFE missing, Captain TROWER wounded. Other Ranks 18 killed, 25 missing, 109 wounded.”

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