Name
Theodore Hamilton Beit
29 April 1898
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
26/01/1917
18
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Household Cavalry & Cavalry of the Line (inc. Yeomanry & Imperial Camel Corps)
1st (King's) Dragoon Guards
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Searched but not found
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TEWIN (ST. PETER) CHURCHYARD
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Family grave at St Peter's Churchyard, Tewin, Tewin Village Memorial, St Peter’s Church Muster Roll, Tewin, Individual plaque in St Peter's Church, Memorial Panel, Sandhurst Academy Chapel, Camberley
Pre War
Theodore Beit was born on 29 April 1898 in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the son of Sir Otto John Beit, 1st Baronet of Tewin Water, KCMG and Lady Beit (Lilian Carter) of 49 Belgrave Square, London.
On the 1911 Census he was a boarder at St Andrew's Lodge school, Southborough, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. In 1913 he sailed from Liverpool on the SS Laconia to Boston, MA with his mother and siblings.
He was said to be extremely delicate and had been a patient in an open-air Sanatorium for consumptives in Holt, Norfolk.
Wartime Service
Theodore left Eton School in 1916 to enlist and went to Sandhurst, from where he joined the First Royal Dragoons in October as 2nd Lieutenant (published in the London Gazette on 26 October 1916). He was training with the Dragoons in York.
He died in York on 27 January 1917. The inquest into his death found a verdict of "Suicide during temporary mental derangement".
There was an extensive report in the Hertfordshire Mercury of 2 February 1917:
TRAGEDY OF SEC.-LIEUT. BEIT
Report in The Hertfordshire Mercury, Saturday 2 February 1917
- Supplied by Jonty Wild from the Herts at War Project research undertaken by volunteer Brenda Palmer
SAD SEQUEL TO MILITARY 'RAG'
The barracks at York were on Saturday the scene of a distressing tragedy. Second-Lieut. Theodore H Beit, son of Mr Otto Beit, the South African millionaire, being found in a dying condition in his room with a sporting rifle by his side. The young officer was removed to the military hospital, Fulford, but died shortly after admission.
The fact that Mr Beit was orderly officer for the day led to the early discovery of the tragedy. When he did not present himself for duty a trooper was sent to inquire for him. He was found stretched on the floor in full uniform bleeding profusely and moaning piteously.
He was a bright, promising young officer, and the news of his death, which happened just after his removal to the hospital, created a most painful impression.
Later a letter was found in his writing, a rather rambling document, giving evidence of intense excitement in the very handwriting, in which he said his room had been 'wrecked' and that he could not stand it any longer.
His room was at once visited. It was in disorder, but nothing in the apartment was seriously damaged. The bed gave evidence of the visitation of a practical joker, one of the sheets being turned up to form a pocket in the fashion of what subalterns, as well as other young people, describe as an 'apple pie'.
Inquiry revealed that overnight a number of young officers had been playing a game of 'Cub-hunting' a rough-and-tumble pastime which, like hide-and-seek of children, involves hiding in different rooms.
It is understood that Lieut. Beit himself had agreed to join in the game, and the surmise is that he forgot this engagement. He, at any rate, went to a cinema performance instead. He came back shortly after eleven and found his room had been invaded.
All agree that there was no 'ragging' but the young lieutenant – he was only 18 – was extremely sensitive, and it is conceived that he regarded the disturbance of his room as more than an innocent consequence of his companions' horseplay, and, indeed as a deliberate rebuke to himself for not taking part in the proceedings.
The contents of the distracted lad's letter were communicated to the police, who at once telegraphed to Mr Otto Beit, the lad's father, at his London residence, 49 Belgrave Square.
The sporting gun was found, when examined by the police, to have been loaded in both chambers, but only one had been recently discharged.
The lad was known to be extremely delicate, and a companion had to travel with him some time since when he made a trip to South Africa. Some years ago he was a patient in an open-air sanatorium for consumptives at Holt, in Norfolk, to which his father gave a sum of £6,000 as a mark of gratitude at his son's recovery. He passed from Sandhurst into the First Royal Dragoons last October and was in training with them at York.
With Mr Otto Beit, the unfortunate young officer's father and the other members of the family, the deepest sympathy is felt, especially locally, where they are so well-known, their country seat being at Tewin Water near Welwyn.
Mr Otto Beit has made many generous gifts to the cause of scientific research including £165,000 to the University of London. His complete sympathy with the cause of the Allies he had expressed on numerous occasions. He was one of the signatories to the 'Art Lovers' Protest', published in October 1914, expressing abhorrence with German methods of warfare. At the last meeting of the British South Africa Company the chairman referred to him as 'the most thorough Englishman on the Board'. Mrs Beit is an American lady and there are another son and two daughters of the marriage.
PATHETIC INQUEST STORY
DECEASED'S LAST LETTER TO HIS PARENTS
An inquest into the circumstances attending the death of Second-Lieut. Beit was held at York on Monday.
Mr Ernest James Gape of St Albans, a friend of Mr Beit's family, identified the body. He said that Mr Beit was 18½ years of age. When Mr Beit entered the Army in November last the witness, who was his oldest friend, warned him that his name would not be likely to make him popular at first, but when he last saw him on Boxing Day Mr Beit told him that his warnings were unnecessary, that he had been received by the regiment in a delightful way, and that he enjoyed his soldiering life and was perfectly happy. The witness also learned from inquiries that he was also popular in social circles, and he had never heard one word from him with regard to the behaviour of his fellow officers towards him.
Pte Arthur McArthur, Mr Beit's servant, said that Mr Beit left barracks about 7 o'clock on Friday night, being then in his usual health, and neither depressed nor troubled.
OFFICERS PLAY 'CUB-HUNTING'
Second-Lieut. Thomas Lionel Dugdale said he and the deceased were great friends. Last Friday night Mr Beit went out to dinner. There was no particular reason why Mr Beit should have gone out or stayed in barracks. After mess, the subalterns of the regiment arranged a 'fox-hunting' game, in which the latest joined officers acted as foxes and hid together, the senior subalterns acting as whippers-in, carrying hunting crops with lashes attached, but never using them. There was no ill-feeling of any sort. Mr Beit entered the mess ante-room about a quarter-past 11, when the hunt was just over, and was told to go and hide, being given a minute and a half in which to do so. Search was made but he could not be found. The witness next saw Mr Beit at half past two when he came to the witness's room. The witness was then in bed. Mr Beit said he had been outside the barracks on Low Moor. And when the witness told him the rules were that he was meant to hide in the building and not go out of the barracks he said that he had not understood that. 'What a pity I did not realise that' he said. Mr Beit asked the witness quite calmly for a bit of notepaper, and wrote a note, putting it in an envelope, and left it on the table, asking the witness to deliver it in the morning. All he said about the state of his room was that it was very untidy and would take a bit of clearing up. When he left he said 'Goodbye Tommy, and don't come into my room in the morning'. The witness attached no importance to these words at the time, as Mr Beit seemed perfectly calm. When he heard what had happened he handed Mr Beit's letter to Major Reynolds.
In reply to questions the witness said that when Mr Beit returned to barracks and was told to go and hide, his brother subalterns were not angry with him for having been out. That was the first occasion on which 'fox-hunting' had taken place since that witness joined the regiment. He did not think Mr Beit would have gone out if he had known it was coming off. When he came in he was not 'slated' for being out. When the other subalterns failed to find Mr Beit they were annoyed and went to his rooms, upset things and made his bed into an 'apple pie'. The only thing the witness noticed damaged was a photograph frame, which was knocked off the wall.
DECEASED'S LETTER TO HIS FAMILY
The Coroner read the following extract from Mr Beit's letter, which was addressed to his father:-
'My dearest family, - This is all a great mistake, but I did not hear anything about the foxhunting tonight, and so unfortunately went to the pictures. The result is that everybody was extremely angry that I was not in the mess and so my room was all wrecked. I cannot stand all this. It will get about, and what will everybody think of it? Besides, I shall have to go through hell another night, so I think the best thing for me is to end my life. It is nobody's fault except that other fellows of my own age do not seem to like me.'
Second Lieut. Dugdale, replying to the foreman, said that when Mr Beit wrote about 'hell', he thought he must have been unstrung and that his exposure on the moor had affected his brain. He must have been out in the cold for three hours. Witness could not understand the reference to others not liking him, because only the day before Mr Beit told him what a good time he was having in York.
Major Alan Boyd Reynolds, commanding a cavalry reserve regiment, said that Mr Beit was on excellent terms with his brother officers. Witness had seen Mr Beit's room, and it had obviously been wrecked. Drawers had been taken out and the contents dumped in the middle of the room. No furniture was smashed. If the matter had been brought before him, he would not have taken any notice. The game of cub-hunting was a legitimate pastime. It could not be described as ragging. There was nothing in the junior officers' treatment of [the] deceased which approached the 'ragging' for which some officers had lost their commissions.
Captain Mark Sprot, Scots Greys, said that on Friday night he insisted on being huntsman, with the idea of preventing the officers from becoming too boisterous. They were very hilarious and when he found a rough and tumble going on in one of the bedrooms he ordered them out. He heard no resentment expressed and there were no personalities in the harmless buffoonery of the subalterns. He never heard Mr Beit's name mentioned.
Further evidence showed that the dead officer had shot himself in the head by lying on the floor with the gun at the side, a string being tied at one end to the trigger and at the other end round his boot. No one heard the shot.
The Coroner, summing up, judged from the letter that Mr Beit was of a sensitive disposition and it seemed as if the privation of Friday night had taken his nerve.
The jury returned a verdict of 'Suicide during temporary mental derangement' and joined with the Coroner in an expression of sympathy with the family and the regiment.
Additional Information
His father was born in Hamburg and became a naturalised British subject, he received a war gratuity of £35 and pay owing of £1 16s.
A plaque in St Peter's Church, Tewin reads - IN LOVING MEMORY OF THEODORE HAMILTON BEIT 2ND LIEUTENANT 1ST ROYAL DRAGOONS DIED JANUARY 27TH 1917 AGED 18
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jim Maynard
