Name
Cyril Clifton Welsh
28th October 1889
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
17/07/1917
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Royal Field Artillery
"B" Battery, 256th Brigade,
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
POPERINGHE NEW MILITARY CEMETERY
II.D.33
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Stained Glass Window, Hitchin Boys Grammar School, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour (Book), Hitchin
Pre War
He was born on the 28th October 1889 the eldest son of Robert Crosby Welsh of Monkton, Biggleswade, Beds. a surgeon and Mary Laurie (nee Lewis), daughter of Edmund Lewis Hooker of Albury, Guildford, Surrey.
He was educated at educated at the Hitchin Grammar School, but the dates are not known, and Eastfield House, Ditchling and Epsom College.
He was the husband of Nellie Florence Welsh of 8, Macaulay Road, East Ham, London.
His entry in the De Ruvigny suggests that he was unmarried but we believe this to be an error.
Wartime Service
Cyril was a Captain in the 256th Brigade in the Royal Field Artillery.
He volunteered at the outbreak of war joining the 4th Hussars as a Trooper on the 21st August 1914. He received a commission and was gazetted Temporary 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery in January 1915. He went to France in November 1915 and was placed on the permanent list and promoted Captain in November 1916.
On the 1st December 1915 he was reputedly killed by a bomb dropped from an aeroplane near Poperinghe and was buried in the cemetery attached to the military hospital there. At the time of his death he seems to have been in ‘D’ Battery of the 256th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery which was equipped with 4.5" howitzers and was part of the 51st (Highland) Division in the XVIII Corps of the 5th Army. As a Captain he was almost certainly either on the gun positions or a Forward Observation Officer in or near the trenches with the infantry. It was recorded that he was killed in action near Poperinghe on the 17th July 1917 and buried in the attached Military Hospital there, which suggests that he may have initially been wounded.
This was just before Third Ypres (Passchendaele) and the Battery was positioned about one mile north of Ypres and a mile and a quarter behind the forward trenches, ready to support the infantry attacking towards Kitchener's Wood and to the north east of St. Julien. Constant shelling from the 12th June reached a crescendo on the 16th July, raining shells and drenching gas, especially the new mustard gas.
He was buried in Plot 2, Row D, Grave 33 in the Poperinghe New Military Cemetery in Belgium. There is a private inscription on the headstone reading "So dearly loved so sorely missed".
Brigade General Oldfield wrote : "He was a very gallant man, and I had personally taken steps to get him a regular commission. I remember writing about him, 'When peace comes we cannot afford to do without him in the regiment.' He he had a tremendous capacity for work," and his Commanding Officer, Lieut,-Col. Dyson wrote: "He was an invaluable officer of the highest type of courage, well proved on many occasions, with wonderful energy and capacity for work."
Additional Information
There is a discrepancy regarding his date of death. ‘Officers died and his CWGC gravestone show it as above, but the Medal Rolls show it as the 16th August 1917.
His brother, Major W.L. Welsh of the R.A.F., survived the war and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Croix de Guerre with palm and the Order of the Crown of Belgium.
Acknowledgments
Adrian Dunne, David C Baines, Jonty Wild
