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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