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 :

Captain Bernard Ridley Winthrop-Smith died of wounds received near Ypres whilst serving with 1st Battalion, Scots Guards on 8 November 1914 . He died at Base Hospital, Boulogne, seven days later.

He went to Eton and was initiated into Isaac Newton University Lodge No 859 whilst an undergraduate at Trinity College Cambridge.

He is remembered in a stained glass at St. Matthew’s, Pentrich, Derbyshire and at Eton, and was laid to rest at South Wingfield Park Burial Ground, Derbyshire.

See also: Household Brigade Lodge No. 2614.

Masonic :

Joined the Household Brigade Lodge No. 2612 from Isaac Newton University Lodge No. 859 on 25th January 1909. Although there is no reason noted in the contribution record he was probably a resigning member from 1906.

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