PREFACE.✦

The purpose of the Roll of Honour is to place on permanent record the name of every officer, non-commissioned officer and man of His Majesty’s Forces, on land or sea, who is killed in action, who dies of wounds, or whose death is otherwise resulting from the present war. The work is to be issued in a series of volumes, and the arrangement is alphabetical.

The name, rank and regiment of every one whose name appears in the official casualty lists are included, and where details have been obtainable, the parentage, place and date of birth, schools, a biographical sketch of career, and date and place of death, with extracts from letters of Commanding Officers or comrades relating to the action in which the officer or man fell, or to the particular circumstances of his death. The names of children have been included so that in the years to come they may themselves read, or teach their children to read, of the glorious way in which their fathers died; and of those individual acts of bravery that are the chief redeeming features of war.

The present volume contains some 8,000 names, and deals with casualties during the first year of the war, though certain exceptions have been made in order that relatives, though killed at different periods, may be included together. In every case it has been found possible to give the full name and to state the actual date, and the locality, of death, and these details must add very greatly to the value of the record, as they are not to be found in the Official Casualty Lists.

A large number of portraits of officers and men will be found included. With some 300,000 casualties it was obviously clearly impossible that one should be given in every case, but when a portrait is supplied, the publishers do their best to include it.

The three following volumes, which are at present in course of completion or preparation, will, it is hoped, be issued this year. These are the second and third volumes for 1914–15, and the first volume for 1916. It is earnestly hoped that relatives of those deceased in the service will, by furnishing particulars, co-operate in carrying out what is, even with the official facilities which are being given, an exceedingly difficult task.

The Editor and Publishers wish it to be distinctly understood that the insertion of any name is in no way dependent upon the payment of any fee or of subscription to the book, and that no fee will be accepted for the insertion of any name.

The complete text of the official despatches will be given in the final volume, and in this will also be included a regimental index, in which will appear under each regiment a roll of the officers and men who have been killed, or died on active service, throughout the war, with a reference to the volume in which the biography appears.

14–15, HANOVER CHAMBERS, BUCKINGHAM STREET, ADELPHI, W.C.

December, 1916.

The Roll of Honour.

=ABBAY, MARMADUKE JOHN NORMAN=, Capt., 87th Punjabis, Indian Army, 2nd s. of the Rev. Richard Abbay, Rector of Earl Soham, Framlingham, Hon. Canon of Norwich, and Alderman of East Suffolk, by his wife, Janet, dau. of the Rev. Canon C. F. Norman, and grandson of Thomas Abbay, of Great Ouseburn; b. Earl Soham Rectory, co. Suffolk, 3 Nov. 1885; educ. at The College, Framlingham; Mr. T. Eastman’s, Winchester, and at Sandhurst; gazetted 2nd Lieut. Dorsetshire Regt. 16 Aug. 1905; promoted Lieut. and transferred to the 87th Punjabis, 16 Nov. 1907, and Capt. 16 Aug. 1914. On the outbreak of war he was attached to the 47th Sikhs, Lahore Division, served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders, and was slightly wounded at Neuve Chapelle, 10–14 March, 1915, where only one British officer out of ten was untouched; and in the attack at Ypres on Sunday, 25 April, when the machine gun bearer--a Sikh--was struck down, Capt. Abbay took the gun and carried it, drawing the fire of the enemy on himself, until he fell badly wounded. Being very hot with his exertions and faint from loss of blood, he told his men to pour cold water over him, and they, being Indians, did so. The result was that, besides being very seriously wounded, he was very ill when he reached the hospital at Boulogne, the wound would not heal, and he was unable to survive the third serious operation, and died under an anaesthetic on 10 May. He was brought home and buried with military honours at Earl Soham. Bronze memorial tablets by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, Bt., R.A., have been placed in the churches of Earl Soham, Suffolk, and Great Ouseburn, Yorkshire. His two brothers are (1916) on Active Service--Major Bryan Abbay as second in command of the 20th Royal Fusiliers (3rd Public Schools Battn.,) and Lieut. Ambrose Abbay, in command of the Destroyer Garry.

=ABBOT, JOHN=, Private, No. 3248, 1st Battn. Loyal North Lancashire Regt.; was employed at Mr. J. Fletcher’s Great Lever Brickworks, Bolton; enlisted on the outbreak of war; went to France early in April, 1915, and was killed in action on the Western Front, June following, aged 19.

=ABBOTT, ALBERT=, A.B. (R.F.R., B. 5365), S.S. 99, H.M.S. Hawke; lost in action in the North Sea, 15 Oct. 1914.

=ABBOTT, CHARLES THOMAS=, Coy. Q.M. Sergt., No. 5080, B Coy., 2nd Battn. Royal Irish Regt., s. of Graves Abbott, Sergt. 1st Battn. Royal Scottish Fusiliers; b. Secunderabad, India, 13 Sept, 1881; enlisted 15 April, 1896; served in the South African War (Medal with Clasps), in India, and with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders; killed in action 24 May, 1915. He m. at Karachi, 9 Dec. 1908, Margaret Helen, dau. of John William Gorbey, of Carrick-on-Suir, and had a son and two daus: Henry Graves, b. Agra, 17 Nov. 1910; Agnes May, b. Agra, 2 Oct. 1909; and Ellen Rewa, b. on the troopship Rewa in the Bay of Biscay, 26 Dec. 1911. Sergt. Abbott’s brother-in-law, Corpl. Frank R. Gorbey, D.C.M., was killed in action, 23 April, 1915.

=ABBOTT, ERNEST WILLIAM=, Private, No. 16125, 1st Coy. Grenadier Guards, eldest s. of William Abbott, of 123, Ranelagh Road, Ipswich; killed in action in France, 26 Oct. 1914, aged 20.

=ABBOTT, FREDERICK CHARLES=, Corpl., No. 20738, 10th Battn. 1st Canadian Contingent, yr. s. of Frederick Charles Abbott, of S. Mildred’s, Salters Hill, Norwood, S.E., Solicitor; b. Brixton, 2 Feb. 1885; educ. at Dulwich College; was Assistant Baggage Master, C.P. Railway, at Medicine Hat, Alberta. On the outbreak of war joined the Canadian Contingent, Sept. 1914, was promoted Corpl. April, 1915, and was killed in action in the second Battle of Ypres, 23 April, 1915; unm.

=ABBOTT, ROBERT=, A.B., 211311, H.M.S. Cressy; lost in action in the North Sea, 22 Sept. 1914.

=ABBOTTS, HARRY=, Private No. 16814, 5th Battn. Shropshire L.I., s. of David Abbotts, of Brierley Hill, co. Stafford, and Hampton Charles, co. Hereford, by his wife, Jane (d. 19 May, 1912), dau. of Richard Bedford, of Bromyard, co. Hereford; b. Hampton Charles, 4 May, 1896; educ. Bockleton National School; enlisted, 3 Feb. 1914; was sent to the Front at his own repeated request, and died of wounds received in a bayonet charge at the Battle of Loos, 25 Sept. 1914. After being wounded he was removed to the trench occupied by the Durhams, where he died. Corpl. R. J. Smith wrote: “At 3 a.m. on 25 Sept. the big guns started to clear the way for the R.B.’s, O. and C.’s, Bucks and Shropshires to get over the parapet ... all too eager they went before it was intended, and the R.B.’s fell to a man, principally owing to a mine being exploded. Five only crawled back. The O. and C.’s and Bucks in the middle found no support for them, but still went on with the Shropshires on the right, and gained their goal, ‘but owing to the heavy losses and no supports being forthcoming’ the ground gained had to be left again, and most of the casualties of the Shropshires happened then. Your brother managed to get back to our lines, and everything possible was done for him and others, but this was not much in the trenches in the daytime. He died 8.30 a.m. 26 Sept. in the traverse I was in charge of.”

=ABBS, TOM WILLIAM ROBERT=, S.B.A., M. 4398, H.M.S. Aboukir; lost in action in the North Sea, 22 Sept. 1914.

=ABEL, CLAUD CECIL=, Private, R.M.L.I. (R.F.R., B.1884), Ch. 12162, H.M.S. Cressy; lost in action in the North Sea, 22 Sept. 1914.

=ABERCROMBIE, ROBERT HENRY CHESTER=, 2nd Lieut., 1/8th Battn. Middlesex Regt., only s. of Chester Abercrombie, of Ashberrie, Ruislip, Middlesex, by his wife Ada, dau. of Robert Large Baker, of Leamington, M.D.; b. Willesden, N.W.; educ. at Woodriding School, Pinner, and Elstow School, where he was a member of the O.T.C. On leaving school he entered the London County & Westminster Bank, and was successively in the St. John’s Wood, Hanover Square, Uxbridge and Hastings branches, and after the outbreak of war joined the 2/9th Battn. of the Middlesex Regt. in Oct. 1914; was promoted Corpl. in Nov. and Sergt. in Dec.; obtained his commission as 2nd Lieut. with the 3/8th Battn. of the same regt. in March, 1915, and the following month was transferred to the 1/8th Battn., then in Flanders. In the fighting at Frezenberg, near Ypres, 3 May, 1915, the company were detached as escort to the artillery, and he was killed while in command (the other company officers having been all killed or disabled) in the act of helping a wounded comrade. Buried in Poperinghe Cemetery; unm.