Alexander Findlater Todd – “Fin” to his friends – was shot in the neck on April 17, 1915, as he peered over a trench parapet, a few miles east of Ypres, and died of wounds in a casualty clearing station four days later.

On tour in South Africa in 1896, aged 23, with the British Isles (before they were the Lions), the 6ft 2in rugby forward had drawn admiring comments from both the rugby writers of South Africa and from the ladies at the post-match Smoking Concerts. Through his letters home, I learnt of his humour, his charm, his fine singing voice and his youthful exuberance – “I had 26 dances down on my programme,” he wrote from South Africa, “the record for the tour so far.”

In witness statements in the National Archive at Kew, I read of his bravery, his men’s prescient concern that “his great height would expose him”, and his fatal wounding at the age of 41.

British assault on April 17, 1915, began at 19.05 hours with the explosion of several mines at points across Lovers’ Hill. During the infantry attacks that followed, a German bullet fatally wounded Captain Alec Todd, who had returned from home leave only the day before.

“He seemed perfectly regardless of his danger,” recalled a comrade, Private Coleman, “and two or three men remarked that if he stayed there he was bound to be hit, and suddenly they saw him fall.”

David Brown