Early Life :

Family :

Education & Career :

He attended Dulwich College from 1895-1900 and by 1901, aged 17, he was attending boarding school in Cowley, Oxfordshire.

He was at Dulwich College for five and a half years, starting in the summer of 1895. At the end of 1900 he left, whilst a member of the Classical Remove

Joining the University of London, Preedy took his matriculation exam in June 1903, and registered at King’s College in October 1903.

He studied for Honours in Classics, in the Faculty of Arts. He passed his B.A. in 1906, gaining a Third Class Honours in Classics.

He left King’s College after gaining his degree, but returned to his studies at M.A. level and registered at a different college, University College, in January 1907. His M.A. was in Classical Archaeology. The title of his thesis was “The Chariot Group of the Mausoleum”. This title was accepted (although it was late) on Jan 25th, 1909 and was approved a week later on February 1st. He passed his M.A., and left University College in 1909. In 1910, his thesis was published in The Journal of Hellenic Studies, one of the foremost periodicals in the Classical scholarship field.

In 1911, aged 27, Preedy was boarding with the Smith family, a wife and daughter living in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. He was working as an Assistant Schoolmaster there, at the County Grammar School of King Edward VII. Here, Preedy organised sports games and the school's first Scout troop.

Because of his time here, Preedy was later honoured as one of the former masters of the school who gave their lives in the Great War, and a plaque bearing his name was installed in the main reception of the school.

Later in 1911, he returned to London and was employed by the University of London as a Secretary in the Extension Department.

The Preedy Memorial Library is a trust fund established in his memory.

In July 1922, Mrs. Emily Preedy provided a loan to the University of London, the annual interest of which was to be applied to the purchase of some works on archaeology and art to be kept in the University Library, in memory of her son. He was particularly interested in those subjects and the collection also includes some volumes from his own library, presented by Mrs. Preedy in 1924.

His name appears on the memorial at Senate House, in Leicestershire where he had been a schoolmaster, and on the Horsforth Cenotaph in Yorkshire.

Service Life:

Campaigns:

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

31 July - 10 November 1917. By the summer of 1917 the British Army was able for the first time to fight on its chosen ground on its terms. Having secured the southern ridges of Ypres at Messines in June, the main attack started on 31st July 1917 accompanied by what seemed like incessant heavy rain, which coupled with the artillery barrages conspired to turn much of the battlefield into a bog. Initial failure prompted changes in the high command and a strategy evolved to take the ring of ridges running across the Ypres salient in a series of 'bite and hold' operations, finally culminating in the capture of the most easterly ridge on which sat the infamous village of Passchendaele. The Official History carries the footnote ?The clerk power to investigate the exact losses was not available? but estimates of British casualties range from the official figure of 244,000 to almost 400,000. Within five months the Germans pushed the British back to the starting line, which was where they had been since May 1915.

Detail :

He was killed in action by the bursting of a shell in France during an advance at Poelcapelle on 26th October, 1917

He was awarded a Victory Medal and a British War Medal. The application for these medals was made in 1921, by the Nightingale family. He is buried at the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.

Masonic :

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
• Website : University of York Archive
• Researcher : Tom Hawley