Commemorated: | |||
| 1. Book: | The (1921) Masonic Roll of Honour 1914-1918 | Pg.124 | |
| 2. Memorial: | The (1940) Scroll - WW1 Roll of Honour | 14D GQS | |
Awards & Titles: | |||
Family :
Son of Edward Douglas Lennox Harvey and Constance Annie Harvey, of Beedingwood, Horsham, Sussex.Lt F.L Harvey
An unusual feature of the composition of the officer group of 9 Lancers in 1914 was the number of brothers serving together: Riversdale and Francis Grenfell; Guy F. and G. Nairne Reynolds; George Edward and Henry Collingwood Taylor-Whitehead; and Douglas Lennox and Frank Lennox Harvey. Five of the eight were dead by May 1915, four of them killed before Christmas.
The Harveys were to die within days of each other, a factor that was to complicate the process of recording casualties at the War Office. The younger, Douglas, died of wounds on 3 November 1914 and was buried in Dranouter cemetery, West-Vlaanderen. Frank was officially reported as missing either on the 30th or 31st of October (it was the 31st). They came from a very wealthy, privileged yet very unfortunate Scottish family. 32
Their father was Rev. Edward Douglas Harvey, once Rector of Downham Market in Norfolk, who in 1894 had moved to Beedingwood, a large late Victorian house, in Colgate, Sussex, where he and his wife Constance played leading roles in local Conservative politics and community affairs. Among many other positions held, Rev. Harvey was Chairman of Sussex County Cricket Club.33
In 1901 the family employed twenty live-in domestic staff. 34
Edward and Constance were to have five children, three boys and two girls. The three boys attended Eton, Frank—born in 29 July 1891 he was the eldest—leaving in 1909 and Douglas in 1911. Both went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, Frank matriculating in 1909 and Douglas in 1911. 35
Both served in the university Cavalry Squadron of the OTC as officers and both were subsequently commissioned into the 9th Lancers, Frank in January 1913 and Douglas in May 1914. 36
Frank was promoted to Lieutenant on 6 October 1913. 37
This bald account suggests that the brothers lived in the rarefied atmosphere surrounding the privileged, innocent and often wealthy young gentlemen of Edwardian England who seemingly had the world at their feet. 38
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University, hinted at what was to be lost when these young men went to war. Late in 1914, with Cambridge devoid of students and younger staff, he remembered a small event in 1913 in which Douglas Harvey probably played a part:
"I see a cavalry troop of the Cambridge University O.T.C. clattering home over the bridge at Magdalen in a drizzle at the shut of the evening ... calling to one another, as they wheeled by St John’s, as if all Cambridge belonged to them. They are gone. They have taken their cheerfulness out of Cambridge; and have left us to an empty university, to chill streets, the short days, the long nights." 39
Such memories were to spawn the myth of “The Lost Generation”, a gilded youth, the non-fulfilment of whose talents ‘was part of a tragedy played out beyond their time’. 40
Yet pre-war tragedies plagued the Harvey family too. One of the daughters died unexpectedly in 1897 and their younger brother, Ernest, died of pneumonia following a boating accident at Eton in April 1908. 41
Only three months later their mother died suddenly while in London.42 Such events brought the boys closer together. Being identical twins ensured that Riversdale Grenfell transferred from the Royal Bucks Hussars to join his brother with the 9th Hussars as Intelligence Officer as soon as war was declared. Frank and Douglas Harvey, only two years apart in age, followed the same pathway from Eton onwards partly because of shared family misfortune. It was to lead to greater tragedy. The death of Douglas, of wounds, was conclusive. He was buried and officially reported dead. 43
Frank’s situation was much more complex, for no-one could say for certain that he had been killed. As in Abadie’s case, Julian Grenfell was the only eye-witness. He reported seeing Harvey during the action on 31 October. In the late morning, returning from reporting to Campbell—who had told him to hang on until reinforcements arrived—he spoke ‘to Lennie Harvey, who was standing with his troop in the road. ... I told [him] I had had orders to hold the ridge, which I pointed out to him, and told him to hold the ridge on my left. This, I believe, is the last that was seen of that officer’. 44
Edward Harvey received a telegram from the War Office on 3 November, informing him that Frank was missing. The family appears not to have sought information from the International Red Cross in Geneva, but the War Office sent an inquiry to Berlin via the American Embassy which elicited the reply that a Lieutenant George Harvey of the Suffolk Regiment was a prisoner at Burg. 45
In May 1915, at the same time as Abadie’s situation was being reviewed, the War Office began to receive Red Cross reports from wounded 9th Lancer survivors of 31st October. One, Private Pearce, partly confirmed Grenfell’s account: Harvey had been sent with eight or nine men to defend a barricade at Messines, none of whom were seen again. Two other reports focused on Douglas rather than on Frank. Trooper Skinner thought that Frank was wounded and a prisoner of war, with Douglas being killed a fortnight later. Lance-Corporal Twyford saw Douglas being buried, after a shell had landed in his trench killing him and four others. He made no mention of Frank but noted that Douglas ‘had not been with us long’. 46
None of these reports could be used to confirm Frank’s death. There were enough hints that he might be a prisoner for his father to refuse to accept the War Office’s suggestion in 1915 that his son should be officially presumed to be dead. In the circumstances and having already lost so many of his family, Edward Harvey’s decision to retain hope that at least one of the sons from his first marriage was still alive is understandable. In deference to his wishes, Frank’s name was kept in the Army List until 1919. Only once most of the prisoners of war had returned home did the family’s lawyer contact the War Office, in January 1919, asking for a death certificate. MS C.2, the War Office Casualties Department, made one further enquiry to the CO of the 9th Lancers, citing Twyford’s unofficial report. As might be expected, no further news had come to light: Frank Harvey ‘was last seen going towards his squadron’. On 25 March 1919 the War Office informed Edward Harvey that his son was now officially presumed dead through ‘lapse of time’. 47
NOTES
32 Frank, for instance, left £354777 in his will. The family’s fortune was made in the West Indies.
33 The Argus, 10 August 2012, http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9855724.Amongst_the_ruins_of_lost_Sussex_stately_homes/
34 1901 Census, Ancestry.Co.uk.
35 G.V. Carey (ed), The War List of the University of Cambridge 1914-1918 (Cambridge 1921), p.405.
36 London Gazette, 11 July 1911, p.5173, 17 January 1913, p.410, 18 February 1913, p.1244, 15 May 1914, p.3929. Their uncle was Colonel Sir George Samuel Abercrombie Harvey, Black Watch, who spent most of his career in Egypt and the Sudan and served during the Great War as Provost Marshal.
37 Army List 1914.
38 For an assessment of their characters, see Churchill, Blood and Thunder, p.25.
39 Quoted in Pound, Lost Generation, p.56.
40 Ibid., p.184.
41 The Derelict Miscellany: Beedingwood, www.derelictmisc.org.uk/beedhome.html
42 West Sussex County Times and Standard, 18 July 1908. Edward Harvey remarried in 1911 and had another son.
43 When the official stone was erected over his grave after the war, his father added the inscription, “For God For King and Country”.
44 Buchan, Francis and Riversdale Grenfell, p.220.
45 Service Record, Lt Frank Lennox Harvey, TNA PRO WO 339/8809. The officer was Lt R.G. Harvey, 2nd Suffolk Regiment, captured at Le Cateau.
46 Ibid. The reports are dated 3 May 1915, 21 May 1915 and 30 May 1915 respectively.
47 Ibid.
Education & Career :
Eton & Trinity College, Cambridge (1912).
Probate: HARVEY, Frank Lennox of Beedingwood, Horsham, Sussex, died 30 October 1914 near Messines, Belgium. Probate London 26 June to Reverend Edward Douglas Lennox Harvey, Clerk and Arthur Thornton Hodgson, gentleman. Effects £354,777 0s. 9d.
Service Life:
Campaigns:
- The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.
| Unit / Ship / Est.: Not Yet Known |
- |
| Action : No Data |
No Data has been recorded for the final action, because none has yet been found. If you have any information to offer, please contact the Project Team so we can add.
Detail :
One of the greatest days of crisis for the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) during the Great War was 31 October 1914, when German forces, greatly superior in numbers and artillery, attempted to break through the lines defending Ypres at two important places, on the Messines ridge and along the Menin Road towards Gheluvelt. 1
A German cavalry General informed his wife on the 29th that ‘If the attack is successful, the enemy line will be pierced and their situation as far as the sea will be untenable. ... It could well be decisive for the northern theatre of operations’.2 Facing the brunt of the onslaught at Messines was 1st Cavalry Brigade, to which the 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers were attached from 2nd Cavalry Brigade.3 The Cavalry Corps, acting as infantry, was badly stretched, having to defend a line six miles in length from Kleine Zillebeke in the north to the south of Messines with far too few troops.4 The numbers on both sides to be involved on the 31st at Messines are impossible to calculate accurately. One very reliable modern account says that ‘some twelve German battalions, comprising some 6000 men, faced not much more than 900 cavalrymen’, a ratio slightly higher than the Official History’s ‘over six to one’.5 Whatever the exact figure—and ‘wastage’ on both sides in the days before has to be acknowledged—the 1st Cavalry Brigade was heavily outnumbered at Messines, with only one artillery unit, I Battery RHA, in direct support. The 9th Lancers at full strength would have had 549 Other Ranks; on 30 October 1914 it numbered 409, with only about 150 available for the firing line as many men were at the Remount Depot and 618 horses had to be cared for away from danger.6
The 9th Lancers had had an eventful time in the war, being commanded by the inspirational Lt- Colonel David ‘Soarer’ Campbell until he took over 6th Cavalry Brigade on 8 November 1914.7 One Squadron had been among the first to sight German units, on 21 August 1914.8 The regiment fought at Élouges on the 24th—where it took part in a disastrous charge and Captain Francis Grenfell won the Victoria Cross for helping to save four guns of 119 Battery, RFA—and suffered like the rest of the BEF on the retreat to the Marne.9 On 7 September the 9th Lancers were involved in the last lance-to- lance charge in European history, driving off from Moncel a superior force of Prussian Dragoon Guards, an action that has been described as of ‘antiquarian interest’.10 It was present at the Battle of the Aisne where, unfortunately, on 29 September while in billets at Longueval, several shells fell amongst A Squadron, killing one officer, Lt G.E. Taylor-Whitehead, and seventeen Other Ranks and wounding another twenty-five.11 This occurred just days before, like the rest of the BEF, the regiment moved north.
During the morning of 30 October the 9th Lancers were in billets at Neuve-Eglise, a short distance from where the BEF were holding the line around Messines. At 1pm Campbell received orders to prepare to relieve the 11th Hussars, who were in trenches either side of the road to Warneton on the eastern side of Messines.12 The relief took place at dusk under heavy shellfire. To the left were trenches held by the 2nd Dragoon Guards (the Queen’s Bays); to the right, trenches held by two companies of the 57th Wilde’s Rifles, attached from the 7th Indian Infantry Brigade.13 In Campbell’s opinion, his unit was too small to defend his position adequately. He needed 290 men; he claimed to have only half that number.14 This left him with no support and a weak firing line. With one trench as an outpost held by C Squadron and with the Bay’s trenches thrown back, the 9th Lancers were in a small and vulnerable salient (see map). After several requests from Campbell, during the night a troop of the 5th Dragoon Guards was sent up to stiffen the defences in the right trench. Meanwhile, the 2nd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers began to relieve the Indian troops.15
It was too little, too late. Shortly before daybreak on the 31st the Germans attacked in force. Francis Grenfell ‘heard horns blowing and German words of command and cheering’ as the Indian companies on the right of the Lancers gave way.16 Soon the pressure was felt along the whole front.
Campbell reported that:
"I told my [Squadron] leaders to hold on and I reported to General Briggs and received orders to hold on. At the same time I received information from my left squadron that the Bays had been driven out of the only trench which protected them from being enfiladed. I sent word to my leaders to hold on but withdrew two troops of my right squadron to support trench A [see map] to prevent the enemy attacking in rear. Both my flank squadrons reported they were being attacked in flank and enfiladed and could not hold on."17
Campbell then ordered C Squadron, in the outpost trench to the east, to withdraw and to protect the left of the regiment with B Squadron, part of which had been sent to the right.
Grenfell, OC B Squadron, subsequently wrote that:
"I was now left with two very weak troops—that is, from 15 to 20 men and a machine gun. Suddenly, about twenty yards to our rear at daybreak there was a rush of men from some houses. To my utter astonishment they appeared to be Germans. Apparently the enemy ... had got round my extreme left ... and attacked the troops [the Bays] on my left, who had given way. The Germans were around us at a distance of 100 yards. They took a house, ran up to the top storeys and fired straight into my trench. ... I was on the extreme right of the trench when this was reported to me. I had decided to hang on when I became aware that C Squadron ... had received orders to withdraw. At this moment heavy fire was directed on our trench, not only from the rear but also from the left flank, where the Germans had brought up a machine gun. Luckily, the bullets went a bit high. I ordered the men to retire from the right and crawled out of the trench to the houses that were on the right of the brickfield." 18
Shortly afterwards a shell hit his Squadron and ‘blew it to the winds’. Grenfell was wounded—with ‘an ugly bullet-hole in his thigh’—and carried back to safety.19
By this time the 9th Lancers were boxed in, ‘forming more or less three sides of a square’. With only one subaltern left unhurt and bombarded by shrapnel, orders were received to fall back to the far side of Messines. This was accomplished ‘in good order’.20 Despite ‘a wonderful defence by cavalry with the bayonet, fighting from house to house and street to street’, Messines was lost to the Germans on the following day.21 At dusk on 1 November the remains of the 9th Lancers took over trenches to the west of the village, where they remained until daybreak.
The regiment’s War Diary recorded the following officer casualties: 1 killed; 8 wounded and 2 missing. The regimental history also mentions another officer wounded on the 31st, Lt D.M. Veitch, who was attached from 1st Lancers, Indian Army.22 The officer confirmed dead was the unfortunate 2nd Lt P.F. Payne-Gallwey, attached from 21st Lancers, who joined on the 30th and was killed within twenty-four hours. The two recorded as missing were Captain A.M. Pollard, RAMC, later confirmed as POW, and Lt F.L. Harvey, whose brother was to die of wounds on 3 November. On the War Diary’s list of wounded were: Major E.H.E. Abadie; Captain F.O. Grenfell; Captain the Hon. R. Robertson; Captain G.N. Reynolds; Lt J.H.B. Hollings; Lt C.W. Norman; Lt F.S. Crossley and Captain I.B.G.T. Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (Lord Blackwood). Four of these—Robertson, Reynolds, Norman and Crossley—were subsequently confirmed as prisoners of war. Grenfell and Blackwood found themselves next to each other on stretchers at Bailleul.23
With the ground over which they had fought having been lost, discovering the immediate fates of the wounded and missing was difficult. News of the five captured slowly filtered through, but there was no concrete evidence to explain what had happened to Abadie, Hollings and Harvey.24
Abadie and Harvey were ‘originals’ with the regiment; Hollings, attached from 21st Lancers, had reported for duty on 24 September. Abadie’s casualty status changed after a few weeks, from wounded to unofficially POW.25
Presumably, some information had become available, possibly from a wounded man in hospital. But thereafter the trail ran cold.
Notes
1 Adrian Gilbert, Challenge of Battle: The Real Story of the British Army in 1914 (Oxford 2013), p.243.
2 Quoted in Nigel Cave and Jack Sheldon, Ypres 1914: Messines (Barnsley 2015), pp.34-36.
3 J.E. Edmonds, Official History of the Great War: Military Operations France and Belgium 1914 (1924: Uckfield, n.d.), Vol. 2, p.304.
4 John Buchan, Francis and Riversdale Grenfell: A Memoir (London 1920), p.215. The 9th Lancers were issued with bayonets for the first time on 17 October. War Diary, 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers, 17 October 1914, TNA PRO WO 95/1113.
5 Ian F.W. Beckett, Ypres 1914: The First Battle (Harlow 2006), p.160; Edmonds, Official History, Vol. 2, p.307.
6 War Diary, 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers, 30 October 1914.
7 Campbell had won the 1896 Grand National on Soarer. Later in the war he commanded 21st Division. Richard Holmes, Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front (London 2005), pp.197-198. He gave an inspirational speech to the regiment just two days before embarkation for France, reminding the men that they had ‘the greatest traditions to uphold’. Alexandra Churchill, Blood and Thunder. The Boys of Eton College and the First World War (iBooks edition), p.26.
8 Edmonds, Official History 1914, Vol. 1, p.52.
9 Gerald Gliddon, VCs of the First World War: 1914 (Stroud 2011), pp.34-36.
10 Reginald Pound, The Lost Generation (London 1964), p.43.
11 War Diary, 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers, 29 September 1914.
12 Except where noted, the following account comes from Appendix II, ‘Report on part taken by the 9th (QR) Lancers in operations round Messines October 30/31st’, War Diary, 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers. The report was written by Lt-Col. Campbell and dated 30-31/10/1914. See also Martin Gillott (ed), War Diary, 11th Hussars, 30 October 1914, https://www.amazon.com.au/Great-War-Diaries-Hussars-Flanders- ebook/dp/B01N7TRZ1E/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528856386&sr=1- 2&keywords=gillott+11th+hussars
13 War Diary, 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen’s Bays), 31 October 1914, TNA PRO WO 95/1109/1; Major E.L. Swift, ‘Brief report on the part taken by the 57th Rifles (FF) in the actions in and around Wytschaete and Messines on the 29th, 30th, 31st October and 1st November 1914’, War Diary, 57th Wilde’s Rifles (Frontier Force), TNA PRO WO 95/3923. See also Martin Gillott (ed), https://www.amazon.com.au/Great-War-Diaries- Frontier-1914-15-ebook/dp/B076Z1D6GN/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528856650&sr=1- 1&keywords=gillott+57th+wilde%27s
14 If Campbell really had only about 150 men available, it begs the question of where the remainder of the 409 reported on 30 October were. Many, as noted above, would have been with the horses and at the Remount Depot, but it is likely Campbell underestimated the number of men he had at his disposal.
15 Gilbert, Challenge of Battle, p.244. Gilbert, following Campbell, erroneously states that it was the 6th, not the 5th, Dragoon Guards. See War Diary, 5th Dragoon Guards, 30 October 1914, TNA, PRO WO 95/1109.
16 Buchan, Francis and Riversdale Grenfell, p.216.
17 Appendix II, ‘Report on part taken by the 9th (QR) Lancers in operations round Messines October 30/31st’, War Diary, 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers. See also, War Diary, 2nd Dragoon Guards, 31 October 1914.
18 Buchan, Francis and Riversdale Grenfell, p.217-218.
19 Frederic Coleman, From Mons to Ypres with General French: A Personal Narrative (New York 1916), p.274. 20 Appendix II, ‘Report on part taken by the 9th (QR) Lancers in operations round Messines October 30/31st’, War Diary, 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers.
21 Gilbert, Challenge of Battle, p.244.
22 E.W. Sheppard, The Ninth Queen’s Royal Lancers 1715-1936 (Aldershot 1939), p.256. I am grateful to Steven Broomfield for information about this book and the 9th/12th Lancer Museum in Derby for making it available on-line.
23 Buchan, Francis and Riversdale Grenfell, p.220.
24 Robertson, Norman and Crossley were reported as prisoners in Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 19 November 1914.
25 Western Mail, 26 November 1914.
26 The Abadie family has been the subject of a recent comprehensive and interesting study. See Liz Moloney, The Abadies (Eastbourne 2014). See also Charterhouse World War I Memorial, www.charterhousewarmemorial.org.uk.
Masonic :
| Type | Lodge Name and No. | Province/District : |
|---|---|---|
| Mother : | Isaac Newton University No. 859 E.C. | Cambridgeshire |
Initiated | Passed | Raised |
5th March 1912 | 30th April 1912 | 23rd May 1912 |
"Killed in Action Oct 1914"
Source :
The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:
- The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
- The (UK) National Archives
- Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
- ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry
Additional Source:
- Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
- Researcher : Bruce Littley