2nd Lieutenant Patrick W Gray. 4.IV.1898 - 9.V.1917.
In the early 1980s I was given a book and a silver cigarette case by my mother. I had heard that I was named Patrick because that was the name of my grandfather's best friend - Patrick Gray - who was killed in the First World War. The cigarette case had been given to their only child Patrick, by his mother and father - Sir Albert Gray and his wife Sophie. The beautifully bound book is called 'Patrick Walworth Gray, The record of a boy's life ended in the Great War written by his father Albert Gray'. When Patrick was killed - died of wounds - at the Battle of Arras his parents received his cigarette case and gave it to my grandfather Arthur Mallet (then a Lt RN) inscribed: 'For Arthur in memory of PWG - Carol Amico'.
Today/tonight I think of Patrick, serving in the Royal Artillery 19 years old, who had left Rugby and at 17 he was awarded a scholarship to Trinity College but instead after just a term at Oxford, went to the Royal Military Academy Woolwich - the school of the Royal Artillery. After graduating from the "Shop" and commissioning into the Royal Field Artillery he had to wait impatiently until he was old enough to deploy to France. After spending Easter that year at home, he was seen off at Waterloo Station by his father and among three or four others, my great uncle Capt Victor Mallet on 17 Aprll. He arrived at the "Front" on 30 April and moved up to the line periodically during the next week or so. He was with his guns in a dugout on 7 May when he wrote his last letter to his parents. Between 11-12pm on 8 May his position was heavily shelled and Patrick was 'struck by a shell while standing over a trench directing his men in their clearing out'. Grievously wounded, it took about 12 hours to evacuate him to the Casualty Clearing Station at Agnez-lez-Duisans (behind Arras) and he died some hours later. Here is a picture of Patrick, his last letter and some detail of his wounding.

Patrick Gildart Jackson