The Hon Gerard Frederick Freeman-Thomas

The Hon Gerard Freeman-Thomas was one of the first casualties of WW1 in the Eastbourne area and his death was to have far reaching consequences on the future of a large part of Willingdon and Eastbourne.

Gerard Frederick Freeman-Thomas was the elder son and heir of Freeman Freeman-Thomas Viscount Willingdon. He was born 3 May 1893 and was educated at Eton and Sandhurst. In September 1913 he was granted a commission in the Coldstream Guards

Gerard was sent to France almost immediately war was declared. There is little information of his death other than the report by a former Eastbourne Policeman, Thomas Evenden and a fellow officer both in the same battalion..

It was on the second day of the battle of the Aisne at about 6.30am when the 1st Bn Coldstream Guards engaged with the Germans in a cornfield coming under heavy fire. Witnesses saw a shell explode near Gerard who fell bleeding from a serious shrapnel wound to the thigh. He told his colleagues to leave him and continue. Thomas Evenden went to his aid, plugged and bandaged his wound as best he could and carried him 50 yards to a road below the battlefield, to a haystack where 15 men gathered, all that remained of their company.

The Germans were advancing in such numbers that the remaining men had to retreat leaving Lt Freeman-Thomas in the area taken by the enemy and where no stretcher bearers could search for another 15 hours. Witnesses said he could not survive that time with such a wound and they found no sign of him.

The Willingdon Parish Magazine October 1914 records that Gerard was missing, wounded but alive and in the charge of a French or German ambulance detachment. This was supposition as there was no evidence of what happened to him and nothing further was ever heard of Gerard. Exhaustive enquiries were made and large sums of money spent by his father and his grandfather Earl Brassey in trying to trace him. Lord Brassey sent a man to France to make enquiries and enquired via the American Embassy but to no avail and in consequence after a few months the family gave up all hope of his survival. To complicate matters much of the Ratton Estate had been passed to Gerard at the time of his 21st birthday. As he was listed as missing and not killed the family sought a legal ruling to have his death confirmed. In May and June 1915 his fate formed a case in the Probate Division of the High Court of Justice. After two hearings leave was given to presume his death on 14 September 1914.

Gerard was killed just 5 weeks after Britain declared war on Germany and was the first of the young men from Willingdon to be killed in action. As he has no known grave, his name is inscribed on the Ferte Sous Jouarre Memorial France. He is also commemorated on the Willingdon parish memorials in the church and memorial hall; on the Eton Roll of Honour and In Lord’s Cricket Pavilion on the Roll of MCC members. As a direct result of his death, the Ratton Estate was divided into Lots and auctioned on Tuesday 12 November 1918, the day after the Armistice and the Freeman-Thomas family left Ratton Manor having lived there since the mid 1748.

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Rosalind Hodge