Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

19 October - 22 November 1914. Following the failure of the German Schlieffen Plan in August and September 1914, both sides engaged in a series of linked battles as they sought to outflank each other. The climax of these manouvres was at Ypres in November 1914 when the might of the German Army attempted to break the much outnumbered British Expeditionary Force. The political importance of Ypres, being the last town of any size in Belgium that remained in allied hands, established its importance for both sides and ensured a series of battles over four years.

The First Battle of Ypres in 1914 is characterised by a series of linked heroic stands by outnumbered British soldiers in conditions of confusion and weary endurance. The Germans never knew how close they had come to winning - at one point just the clerks and cooks were the last line of defence for the BEF. By the end of the battle the magnificent original BEF, composed of professional regular soldiers, had been all but destroyed and already the Territorial battalions were called into battle. From the end of 1914 a 'Regular' battalion was in terms of its compostion little different to a Teritorial or later Service Battalion. The professional soldiers had all but vanished.

Detail :

LIEUT. NIGEL WALTER HENRY LEGGE-BOURKE. 2nd BATTN. COLDSTREAM GUARDS, was the only son of Colonel the Hon. Sir Harry Legge, K.C.V.O., late Coldstream Guards, and Lady Legge, and was born at 45, Grosvenor Square, London, on the 13th November 1889. He was educated at Eton from September, 1902 - December 1907 then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. From Sandhurst he received his commission in the 1st Coldstream Guards in February, 1909, becoming Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion in June, 1910. He left with his battalion for the front on the 12th August, 1914. On the 4th October his name was sent in for mention for his very excellent work and exceptionally good leading of his platoon on all occasions up to the battle of the Aisne He was killed in action by a sniper on 30th October 1914 while in command of a platoon of No. 1 Company holding advanced trenches in Reutal Wood near Ypres. Lieutenant Legge-Bourke married on 3rd June 1913 at the Guards' Chapel, Wellington Barracks, Lady Victoria Carrington daughter of the Marquis of Lincolnshire, and left one son, Edward Alexander Henry, born 16 May 1915. Lieutenant Nigel Walter Legge-Bourke was baptised with the name of Nigel Walter Legge. He held the office of Page-of-Honour to HM King Edward VII between 1902 and 1906. On 26 April 1911 his name was legally changed to Nigel Walter Legge-Bourke by Royal Licence.

Masonic :

Joined Household Brigade Lodge in 1913, but was initiated into Athlumney Lodge No 3245.

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
• Researcher : Tom Hawley