Roll of Honour 2023

P AGE 111

W ORLD W AR O NE (1914 - 1918) INCLUDING THOSE WHO DIED LATER AS A RESULT OF THIS WAR

S T . E DWARD ’ S S CHOOL , O XFORD R OLL OF H ONOUR

Name GEOFFREY CHARLES TOWNROE (Act Capt)

Lef SES 1913

Roll Number 1352 Died 08:09:1917

Set / House D

Arrive SES 1909

Where MENIN, BELGIUM Serving with 4TH, SOUTH LANCASHIRE REG

Age 23

Buried Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, Leper, Belgium Remembered The St. Edward’s School Chapel (Wooden Plaque) and The Cloisters Stone Memorial

Born 1894 in Nottingham, his School career was not especially noteworthy and he was in the Shell Form when he left. He went up to Christ College, Cambridge in 1913 where his studies were disrupted by the war. He joined The Cambridge University OTC and at Christmas 1914 joined the 8th Battalion, Prince of Wales’s Volunteers, South Lancashire Regiment (Pioneers) at Blackpool, commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. By December 1916 he was on the Western Front and in July 1917 was promoted to Acting Captain. A married man. He was killed by a shell while out with a working party digging a trench cable when he was hit in the heart by a shell fragment, dying almost immediately. At the time of his death he was commanding a company of the 1/4th South Lancashire Regiment and had been recommended for full Captain rank.