Monday 23 May 2016


George Loftus MaCfaddin


George Loftus MaCfaddin

Rank:Private

Service No:4834

Date of Death:03/06/1915

Age:18

Regiment/Service:Irish Guards 1st Bn.

Grave Reference: O. 280.

Cemetery:  SHORNCLIFFE MILITARY CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Son of the late Rev. T. H. MacFaddin and Ellen MacFaddin, of Kilmanagh, Co. Kilkenny.






Christopher John Coldwell


Christopher John Coldwell

Rank:Private

Service No:6278

Date of Death:12/10/1915

Age:26

Regiment/Service:Irish Guards 1st Bn.

Grave Reference: XV. A. 13.

Cemetery: LOOS BRITISH CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Son of the late Rev. and Mrs. G. H. H. Coldwell, of Biscathorpe Rectory, near Louth, Lincs.





Sunday 22 May 2016


Rev John Gwynn




Rev John Gwynn

Rank:Chaplain 4th Class

Date of Death:12/10/1915

Age:44

Regiment/Service: Army Chaplains' Department attd. 1st Bn. Irish Guards

Grave Reference: II. K. 6.

Cemetery: BETHUNE TOWN CEMETERY






The Irish Guards In The Great War Vol. I

Edited and compiled from their diaries and papers

by Rudyard Kipling


The Huns had their revenge a few days later when the Battalion's billets and Headquarters at Poperinghe were suddenly, on April 11, shelled just as the Battal- ion was going into line at Ypres. The thing began almost with a jest. The Regimental Chaplain was tak- ing confessions, as is usual before going up, in Poper- inghe Church, when the building rocked to bursts of big stuff obviously drawing nearer. He turned to open the confessional-slide, and smelt gas — chlorine be- yond doubt. While he groped wildly for his gas- helmet in the dusk, the penitent reassured him: "It's all right, Father. I've been to Divisional Gas School to-day. That smell's off my clothes." Relieved, the Padre went on with his duties to an accompaniment of glass falling from the windows, and when he came out, found the porch filled with a small crowd who reported : "Lots of men hit in an ambulance down the road." Thither ran the Padre to meet a man crazy with terror whom a shell-burst had flung across the street, half- stripped and blackened from head to foot. He was given Absolution, became all of a sudden vehemently sick, and dropped into stupor. Next, on a stretcher, an Irish Guardsman crushed by a fallen wall, reported for the moment as "not serious." As the priest turned to go, for more wounded men were being borne up through the dusk, the lad was retaken by a violent haemorrhage. Supreme Unction at once was his need. Captain Woodhouse, R.A.M.C., the regimental doctor, appeared out of the darkness, wounded in the arm and shoulder, his uniform nearly ripped off him and very busy. He had been attending a wounded man in a house near headquarters when a shell burst at the door, mortally wounded the patient, killed one stretcher- bearer outright and seriously wounded two others. The Padre, dodging shells en route, dived into the cellars of the house where he was billeted for the Sacred Ele- ments, went back to the wayside dressing-station, found a man of the Buffs, unconscious, but evidently a Catho- lic (for he carried a scapular sewed in his tunic), an- ointed him, and — the visitation having passed like a thunder-storm — trudged into Ypres unworried by any- thing worse than casual machine-gun fire, and set him- self to find some sufficiently large sound cellar for Battalion Mass next morning. The Battalion followed a little later and went underground in Ypres — Head- quarters and a company in the Carmelite Convent, two companies in the solid brick and earth ramparts that endure to this day, and one in the cellars of the Rue de Malines.

It was the mildest of upheavals — a standard-pattern affair hardly noted by any one, but it serves to show what a priest's and a doctor's duties are when the imme- diate heavy silence after a shell-burst, that seems so astoundingly long, is cut by the outcries of wounded men, and the two hurry off together, stumbling and feeling through the dark, till the electric torch picks up some dim, veiled outline, or hideously displays the wounds on the body they seek. There is a tale of half a platoon among whom a heavy gas-shell dropped as they lay in the flank of a cutting beside a road. Their platoon-commander hurried to them, followed by the sergeant, calling out to know the extent of the damage.


From page 141 and 142

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The Irish Guards In The Great War Vol. I I

Edited and compiled from their diaries and papers

by Rudyard Kipling


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Fr John Gwynn





Futher information - The Sacred Heart Church







Frederick Henry Norris Lee


Frederick Henry Norris Lee

Rank:Lieutenant

Date of Death:04/07/1916

Age:30

Regiment/Service:Irish Guards 1st Bn.

Grave Reference: II. A. 42.

Cemetery: BOULOGNE EASTERN CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Born at Limerick.

Son of the Rev. John Theodore Norris Lee and Mary Lee, of Hatfield Vicarage, Harlow, Essex.

Joined the Tembuland Mounted Rifles, Sept., 1914, and fought against the rebels in the Orange Free State.

Transf. 1915, to the Kalahari Horse and served in the German South West African Campaign.






Noel Butler


Noel Butler

Rank:Second Lieutenant

Date of Death:15/09/1916

Age:28

Regiment/Service: Irish Guards Special Reserve attd. 1st Bn.

Grave Reference: Sp. Mem. A. 11.

Cemetery: DELVILLE WOOD CEMETERY, LONGUEVAL

Additional Information:

Son of the Rev. George Hew Butler, of Rosemary Cottage, Harting, Petersfield, Hants, and the late Florence Butler.







George Edward Savill Young


George Edward Savill Young

Born on 20 January 1884 in Aston Rowant, Oxon

Rank:Major

Date of Death:31/03/1917

Died from wounds recieved in action.

Regiment/Service:Irish Guards 1st Bn.

Grave Reference: III. A. 12.

Cemetery: GROVE TOWN CEMETERY, MEAULTE

Additional Information:

Son of the Rev. Henry Savill Young and Rebecca Isabel Young, of Mallard's Court, Stokenchurch, High Wycombe; husband of Alison Jane Young, of Chelsworth Cottage, Warley, Essex.







Rev. Simon Stock Knapp




Rev. Simon Stock Knapp

Order of Discalced Carmelites

Rank:Chaplain 3rd Class

Date of Death:01/08/1917

killed in the Salient during an attack on 31st July, while helping wounded under heavy shell fire. He was almost 60 when he died.

Regiment/Service:Army Chaplains' Department attd. 2nd Bn. Irish Guards

Awards:D S O, M C

Grave Reference: II. C. 1.

Cemetery: DOZINGHEM MILITARY CEMETERY

A Very Gallant Padre - Download

The Reverend Father Knapp. About 200 officers and men of the Irish Guards attended a Solemn Requiem at Whalley Catholic Church on Tuesday morning for the repose of the soul of the Reverend Father Knapp, DSC, MC. Father Knapp had acted as Chaplain to the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards since the beginning of the war and recently died of wounds received while attending the wounded. A number of guardsmen were stationed around the catafalque upon which had been placed the Chaplain's regimental cap, stole and decorations. Father Knapp was awarded the Military Cross last year and the Distinguished Service Order a little later. He was a member of the Carmelite Community and a representative from the Carmelite church at Kensington attended the service.


Jersey Evening Post of Thursday 16 August 1917


That's My Call - How a Jersey Padre Died in Flanders. DSO Laid on his Coffin. "He won the VC every time he went ministering to the lads in our advance" so wrote a Presbyterian Chaplain with the Forces in France of Father Simon Knapp, who was killed during the push on 31 July. Father Simon Knapp was perhaps the best known Padre in the British Army, he had served through the Boer War and won the Medal with seven clasps. In the present war he had already won the Military Cross, with which he was decorated by the King, and the Distinguished Service Order, but he had not yet been invested with the DSO when he died and Lord de Vesci, Adjutant of the Irish Guards, laid the decoration on his coffin on Friday. The Army's tribute to his devotion was manifest on Friday when a solemn Requiem was sung in the Carmelite Church in Kensington. A party of Irish Guards, to which Regiment he was attached as Chaplain from the commencement of the war, formed a Guard of Honour with arms reversed around the catafalque "Father Knapp is a great loss to us" said the Father Prior to the Daily Sketch on Friday "we have received letters from Ministers of every denomination and from all ranks from Privates to Generals". From the Father Prior the Daily Sketch learned of the hero's last hours. A fearless man he scorned bullets and always went with an advance to administer to the fallen, the manner in which he escaped death scores of times has been the sole topic in the trenches of the Irish Guards and others on many occasions. In this last advance he was not permitted to go with the boys, his insistence was unavailing but he did the next best thing, he just followed. He quickly came upon a fallen Guardsman and was tending him when he himself was badly wounded in the head. The only words he uttered after being struck were "That's my call", he died a few minutes later. Father Knapp was born in Jersey, his mother was Irish and his father French, he was educated at St Edmunds College and was, in his student days, a brilliant cricketer.


Jersey Evening Post of Monday 13 August 1917







Military Cross - Wikipedia






Geoffery Alfred Sutton


Geoffery Alfred Sutton

Rank:Lance Corporal

Service No:11686

Date of Death:27/11/1917

Age:23

Regiment/Service:Irish Guards No. 1 Coy. 2nd Bn.

Grave Reference: IV. A. 15.

Cemetery: ONTARIO CEMETERY, SAINS-LES-MARQUION

Additional Information:

Son of the Rev. Edwin and Annie Hill Sutton, of Grundisburg Rectory, Woodbridge, Suffolk. Born at Eaton Bray, Dunstable.







Harold Augustus Boyd Oliver


Harold Augustus Boyd Oliver

Rank:Second Lieutenant

Date of Death:26/05/1918

Age:34

Regiment/Service:Irish Guards attd. 4th Bn. Guards Machine Gun Regiment

Grave Reference: I. C. 8.

Cemetery: DOULLENS COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION NO.2

Additional Information:

Served under the alias of Norman King. Youngest son of the Rev. George William and Alice Selina Oliver, of 45, St. James Square, Holland Park, London.

An actor; joined in Nov., 1914, the 85th Field Amb.

Served in France and Salonika, invalided home with malaria, afterwards receiving a Commission in the Irish Guards.







The Irish Guards



The Irish Guards







William Robert Richman




William Robert Richman

Rank:Rifleman

Service No:593679

Date of Death:07/04/1917

Age:40

Regiment/Service:London Regiment (London Irish Rifles) 1st/18th Bn.

Panel Reference: Panel 54.

Memorial:YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL

Additional Information:

Son of the Rev. Robert Richman; husband of Florence Amelia Saunders (formerly Richman), of 38, Forthbridge Rd., Clapham Common, London.






Leonard Reeve Beechey

&

His Brothers




Leonard Reeve Beechey

Rank:Rifleman

Service No:593763

Date of Death:29/12/1917

Age:36

Regiment/Service:London Regiment (London Irish Rifles) 18th Bn.

Grave Reference: P. V. H. 12B.

Cemetery:ST. SEVER CEMETERY EXTENSION, ROUEN

Additional Information:

Son of the Rev P W Thomas Beechey and Amy Beechey of Lincoln.

His brothers Bernard Reeve, Charles Reeve, Frank Collett Reeve and Harold Reeve also fell.

Husband of Frances Beechey of Juniper House, Magor, Undy, Newport, Mon.





Charles Reeve Beechey

Rank:Private

Service No:58708

Date of Death:20/10/1917

Age:39

Regiment/Service:Royal Fusiliers 25th Bn.

Grave Reference: 6. E. 3.

Cemetery:DAR ES SALAAM WAR CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Son of the late Rev P W Thomas Beechey and of Amy Beechey of 197 Wragby Rd, Lincoln.





Frank Collett Reeve Beechey

Rank:Second Lieutenant

Date of Death:14/11/1916

Age:30

Regiment/Service:East Yorkshire Regiment 13th Bn.

Grave Reference: II. J. 8.

Cemetery:WARLINCOURT HALTE BRITISH CEMETERY, SAULTY





Bernard Reeve Beechey

Rank:Serjeant

Service No:13773

Date of Death:25/09/1915

Age:38

Regiment/Service:Lincolnshire Regiment 2nd Bn.

Panel Reference: Panel 3.

Memorial:PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL