Private memorial to Capt Henry Langton Skrine, 6th Battn Somerset Light Infantry on Cambridge Road, W of Ypres, Belgium
Capt Henry Langton Skrine, born on 12 November 1880, was the only son of Colonel Henry Mills Skrine & Lady Mary Skrine of Warleigh & Claverton Manors near Bath. He was educated at Eton & Balliol College, Oxford, gazetted into the Somerset Light Infantry in 1901. He applied for a posting in a remote part of Nigeria where he struggled to learn the native languages, and was promoted Lieutenant in 1904. But having become quite ill in the climate he retired to the Reserve of Officers in April 1906. On 7 October 1914 at Aldershot he married Ferdinande Anna Josephine d'Orgeva. Early the following year his father died and he inherited the estates. Skrine rejoined his Regiment on 7 September 1914 and was promoted T/Captain on 24 October. As 'A' Company commander he went to France with the 6th Battalion (43rd Brigade, 14th Division) on 21 May 1915. Prior to the 2nd attack on Bellewaarde Farm on 25 September the Battn was in 42nd Bde. The Somersets were ordered to reinforce the line just N of Railway Wood The enemy retaliated & drove the attackers back. Col Rawlings, seeing that a further assault was out of the question under the terrible gunfire, concentrated on holding the existing line for the rest of the day. Capt Skrine, 2 other officers and 11 men were killed, one officer and 38 men wounded and three missing in the engagement. Col Rawlings wrote to Skrine's wife "...he was buried by his Company in rear of the fighting line. He died instantaneously, shot through the head. With him died four During the attack he saw Germans collecting in a communication trench. Immediately he ordered rapid fire on the enemy. A machine gun on a flank opened fire in return and your husband " No grave was discovered after the War, but his damaged wooden cross was found lying at Gully Farm in 1920. Skrine's sister & his widow bought the field where he had fallen and erected a memorial by the roadside in his memory. There to this day, it is a rough hewn cross in blue stone.
Size: 3622px × 5072px
Location: Begijnenbosstraat 2, 8900 Ieper, Belgium
Photo credit: © Niall Ferguson / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1914-18, belgium, capt, centenary, commemoration, front, great, ieper, infantry, light, memorial, military, poppies, poppy, salient, skrine, somerset, war, western, wreaths, ypres
