Guy Spencer Calthrop

Name

Guy Spencer Calthrop

Conflict

First World War

Date of Death / Age

23/02/1919
48

Rank, Service Number & Service Details

Lieutenant Colonel
Royal Engineers

Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards

Not Yet Researched
Baronetcy

Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country

RICKMANSWORTH (CHORLEYWOOD ROAD) CEMETERY
FF. 2. 2.
United Kingdom

Headstone Inscription

Not Researched

UK & Other Memorials

Not on the Rickmansworth memorials

Pre War

Guy Calthrop was the youngest son of Everard and Mary Ann (nee Edmonds) Calthrop of Swineshead Abbey, Lincolnshire. He was born on 26 March 1870 at Uppingham, Rutland. His elder brother Everard (1857-1927) became a prominent railway engineer. Guy followed in his footsteps and joined the London and North Western Railway in 1886. He worked his way up through the company and then moved to Scotland in 1901 to become general manager of the Caledonian Railway.

In 1901 (Q2) his marriage to Gertrude Margaret Morten (b. 11 Aug 1878) was registered in Hendon district, Middlesex. She was the eighth daughter of James Morten of the Savoy, Denham. In Glasgow they lived at 302 Buchanan Street. He was admitted as a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1910. In the same year he moved to Argentina to run the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway just as the rail link from Argentina across the Andes to the Pacific coast of Chile was completed. Then he returned to Britain as general manager of the London and North Western Railway in 1914 on a salary of £5,000 per annum which was later increased to £6,000.

He lived with his wife, Gertrude Margaret, for several years at Croxley House. They had no children. Calthrop’s funeral took place on 2 March at All Saints’ Croxley Green. A special train was arranged from Euston to Croxley Green. (The Times, 28 February, Watford Observer 9 March 1919.) Gertrude died in 1929 aged 49. They are both buried in a large plot, whose cross lies fallen on the grass, in Chorleywood Road cemetery, Rickmansworth.*1

Wartime Service

Sir Guy Spencer Calthrop (1870-1919) died on 23 February 1919 from pneumonia aged 48. He was a victim of the influenza pandemic.

Guy Calthrop was given the job of managing the vital coal supply as Controller of Coal Mines in February 1917. For this service, Calthrop was made a baronet of Croxley House, Hertfordshire in 1918. He negotiated with both sides of the industry to increase production and appears to have earned the respect of mine-owners and miners’ leaders. The miners gained higher pay and the industry remained very profitable thanks to a guaranteed market, even if prices were controlled. Production in 1916 was higher than the year before but, in the last two years of the war, there was a race between shrinking coal supplies and mounting strategic needs. Calthrop used his railway expertise to reorganise the transportation of coal to avoid unnecessary journeys.

Coal rationing was introduced in 1918 and, because of the effort to stockpile fuel during the summer, consumers had better access to coal than in previous winters. (Death of Sir Guy Calthrop, The Times, 24 February 1919.) Calthrop held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Engineers and, as such, is recorded in the list of war dead by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. For his war work, Calthrop was created a Baronet in June 1918.

Additional Information

Brother of Surgeon Edward Spencer Calthrop R.N. who died in service on 30 Jul 1917.

*1 the cross bears the inscription:

Acknowledgments

Malcolm Lennox, Brian Thomson Croxley Green in the First World War, Rickmansworth Historical Society 2014, Brian Thomson