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 You must seek permission prior to publication of any of our images.


Soldiers of the Regiment

Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft

Often mis-spelt as Thorneycroft

Commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant on 16th August 1905 into the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Lieutenant 1907. Employed with 4th Uganda Battalion The King’s African Rifles 30th December 1909. Killed as Captain on 12th September 1914 in Kenya.

bullet1914-15 Star to Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft. Killed in action 15 Sep 1914 - but as he served in Africa was not entitled to the 1914 Star.
Accession Number: KO1268/01
bulletBritish War Medal to Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own
Accession Number: KO1268/02
bulletAllied Victory Medal to Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own
Accession Number: KO1268/03
bulletMemorial Plaque to Lieutenant (Captain) Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, Killed in action 12th September 1914 whilst attached to the 4th Uganda Battalion, King’s African Rifles.
Accession Number: KO1268/04


Grave of Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Killed in action 12th September 1914 whilst attached to the 4th Battalion, King’s African Rifles. At Kisii Boma, Kenya. Includes private memorial and the War Graves Commission headstone.
Accession Number: KO1268/05



Letter re death of Thorneycroft
Accession Number: KO1268/06


Letter re death of Thorneycroft
Accession Number: KO1268/07


Letter re death of Thorneycroft
Accession Number: KO1268/08





Typed copy of memoir of Lady Savile concerning the death of her fiancé Lieutenant acting Captain G E M Thornycroft
Accession Number: KO1268/09

Memoir of Lady Savile concerning the death of her fiancée Lieutenant (acting Captain) G E M Thornycroft:

I will try and keep this as short as I can but I must work back a little in my thoughts to where we all were, and so forth; my father had been commanding Coast Defences in Cork and his time in the army ended on 4th July 1914 – when he reached 57 which was the retiring age in those days; he went over to England intending to look around for something to do and my mother and I planned to go up to a fishing cottage that we had in Donegal for a few weeks after we had packed up the house in Cork – but it was the time of the ‘Curragh Incident’ and feeling was running so high between North and South at the time, that we decided to join my father in England instead; Gerald was due to get back from East Africa in October and we were going to be married from Robert and Helen Miller’s house at Ingatestone in November, so everything for my own family was unsettled at the time. We left Cork on the 2nd of August, and by then Irish affairs had become very small indeed and the whole world was tense with feverish excitement the question of war with Germany which had been growling since the Sarajevo affair; we crossed to Fishguard with hundreds of wildly cheering, and I think for the most part rather intoxicated reservists, and arrived in London the following night.

The streets were packed with singing and cheering crowds and a tremendous feeling of patriotism made the whole atmosphere feel electric, it was really thrilling. My father joined us at the Basil Street Hotel and brought my mother a small packet of sovereigns and said they would probably be the last we should ever see - ; they were!

Very early the next morning, the Hall porter who was an old friend brought us up tea and newspapers and told us of Sir Edward Gray’s speech about the lights going out over Europe, and that war had been declared. I don’t think anyone felt any fear of anything, just excitement that at last Germany would be put in her place, that all our immediate men folk would be covered in glory and in fact that something quite wonderful was going to happen. I knew that Gerald was already on his way from Jubaland to rejoin his battalion at Bomba, and that it might now bet that we should be married sooner than we had planned and that I must hurry up over the trousseau question; I had of course not the faintest idea which the impact of war would be, and for the first week or so at least, continued to live in my own wonderful dreamland of happiness.

My father was re-employed at once and given command of one of the London Districts and my mother and I went first of all to stay at Caterham with a beloved friend, Kathleen Crosse, and my first realization of war came seeing the Guards – whose depot was there – marching to the station in war kit; the next was a far nearer one for me when I got a cable from Gerald saying he was being retained in Uganda on account of war. Even then although I was bitterly disappointed I was not anxious, I did not dream that there would be fighting in East Africa, and as his time under the Colonial Office was to be up on 30th December, I thought that that would be the very latest he could be kept. All thoughts of brides maids, special train and so forth had of course vanished when war broke out, and I thought we would be married quietly directly he got home. It was impossible for my parents to take a house owing to the uncertainty of everything, all of furniture was stored and we could plan nothing except to take a furnished flat until Gerry got back – but we went up to Scaleby Castle to stay with the Laings before doing so & were cheered by a telegram from my father soon after we got there saying he had been to the Colonial Office and heard that all was well with Jack in Nigeria and with Gerald in East Africa –

On 13th September most of us went to the little church at Scaleby and now I am coming to what I really want to put down, and it is as clear to me now after almost 54 years as it was then. I think it must have been during the singing of a hymn as we were standing, and the window beside us was clear glass; I was thinking of Gerald, and wondering how soon I should hear when he was coming, and looking out of the window, I saw him standing on the grass a few yards away. I thought “Why! There is Gerry” I wasn’t at all anxious, just thrilled by what I thought was an extraordinary piece of imagination, I remember thinking, almost in merriment, shall I rush out of church, or shall I sit down and exclaim that I have seen a vision – not really of course meaning to do anything, but feeling overcome by what, as I say I took to be “vivid imagination”, if I had really known that it was a vision, I should have been terrified for fear it meant that something had happened to him. He was in uniform and looking straight at me, but did not smile and looked sad – and then suddenly, he was not there. Lovely golden September days followed, but on the 18th two telegrams came, one for my mother from my father, and one addressed to me from Gerald’s mother telling me that “our Gerald is on Roll of Honour, killed in action at Kisium”, even now I find it hard to write of it and I must pass over this bitter sorrow. I was beside myself, but that clear sight of him from the window of the church stayed with me; he had been killed leading a charge against the Germans who had crossed the border from German East Africa on the 12th – but no date was given in the telegram and the news did not even reach his mother until late on the 17th.

I do not know why it was on the 13th that I saw him, and not the 12th, but there it is, and though I need no proof of the truth of my vision, I realised a long time afterwards that if any proof were needed, it was in the fact that although I had many snapshots of him from Africa in Khaki I had never before seen him in uniform and in my thoughts did not think of him except in mufti as I had known him.

Transcription of the copy of memoir of Lady Savile concerning the death of her fiancé Lieutenant acting Captain G E M Thornycroft
Accession Number: KO1268/09

 



Letter to Colonel T O Fitzgerald from Captain Lilley re death of Captain G E M Thornycroft.
Accession Number: KO0867/01


Letter to Colonel T O Fitzgerald from Captain Lilley re death of Captain G E M Thornycroft.
Accession Number: KO0867/02


Letter to Colonel T O Fitzgerald from Captain Lilley re death of Captain G E M Thornycroft.
Accession Number: KO0867/03

 


Grave of Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Killed in action 12th September 1914 whilst attached to the 4th Battalion, King’s African Rifles. At Kisii Boma, Kenya. Includes private memorial and the War Graves Commission headstone.
Accession Number: KO0867/04


Grave of Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Killed in action 12th September 1914 whilst attached to the 4th Battalion, King’s African Rifles. At Kisii Boma, Kenya.
Accession Number: KO2798/01


Grave of Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Killed in action 12th September 1914 whilst attached to the 4th Battalion, King’s African Rifles. At Kisii Boma, Kenya.
Accession Number: KO2798/02


Grave of Captain Edward Gerald Mytton Thornycroft, King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. Killed in action 12th September 1914 whilst attached to the 4th Battalion, King’s African Rifles. At Kisii Boma, Kenya. Includes private memorial and the War Graves Commission headstone.
Accession Number: KO2798/03

 

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 You must seek permission prior to publication of any of our images.

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