GEOFFREY LENNOX WAINWRIGHT Second-Lieut. G. L. Wainwright was the elder son of Dr. Lennox Wainwright and Mrs. Edith Wainwright, of 14, Earl’s Avenue, Folkestone, Kent, England. Geoffrey L. Wainwright went on to board at the famous public school for boys - Tonbridge School, Tonbridge, Kent from Mr. Bull’s Preparatory School at Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. His school house was Manor House. He left at Easter, 1913, from the Scientific Sixth. He possessed very considerable artistic and scientific ability, winning the “Design” Prize in the Art School in 1912, and was well known at school for his clever caricatures. From Tonbridge School he went to Christ’s Col¬lege, Cambridge, intending to work for the Diploma of Architecture and Engi¬neering, and had just completed his first year when war broke out. He enlisted in the 16th (Public Schools) Battalion of the Middle*** Regiment, and his commission in the 3rd Battalion Royal Sus*** Regiment is dated August 15th, 1914. He joined this Regiment at Dover and eventually went to the Western Front, in France, on May 15th, 1915, attached to the 2nd Battalion, and was in the trenches from then until his death, with the exception of a week’s leave spent in England. His Captain gave the following account of his death at the age of 21 in the great attack near Vermelles, during the Battle of Loos, on September 25th 1915:- “In the attack we came under a very heavy fire, and we had to push on and take the first line of German trenches. I saw your son leading his men about half way across the open space which separated us, and then lost sight of him. When eventually we pierced their line we pushed on through their second and support lines and right through about a mile and a half, after taking about 700 prisoners. When we returned the next day I visited the ground where we had such a fight and found your son right close against the wire, hard by the German trenches. He must have been ****ed instan¬taneously, as he had several bullets near the heart.” His Colonel, writing to express his own sympathy and that of the Regiment, said:— “Your boy died a soldier’s death, leading his men against the German trenches. We shall miss him much he was a most promising officer and a genial companion, who had endeared himself to all. He was buried at Le Rutoire Farm, about one mile west of Vermelles, with five other officers of the Battalion. Their grave had to be dug under shell fire; in fact, one man of the party was ****ed and one wounded in doing it. They were buried on the 27th Sept by a Chaplain of the Guards Brigade, as the Regimental Chaplain was similarly occu¬pied in another part of the field. “He was,” wrote a brother officer, “one of those highly sensitive men who thoroughly appreciate danger, but was never afraid to face it.” Later Geoff was reburied at Dud Corner Cemetery, Loos. Peter Mellor

Peter Mellor