Anthony Yorke Bailey

Born: 1897

Died: 27 July 1916

Rank and Regiment: 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifles.

Resting Place: body unrecovered

Memorial: St. Peter and St. Paul, Wramplingham, United Kingdom; Eton College War Memorial and Thiepval Memorial, France.

Anthony Yorke Bailey was the only child of Arthur Anthony William Bailey and Helen Margaret (nee Yorke) of Wramplingham Hall, Wramplingham. He was born in early 1897 and was baptised on 24 February 1897 at Wramplingham.

He attended Eton College, leaving in 1915 aged 18.

He was commissioned in the 5th Battalion (attached to the 1st Battalion) King’s Royal Rifles on 11 April 1916 as a Second Lieutenant, aged 19. He was killed in action three months later on Thursday 27 July 1916 at the Battle of Delville Wood on the Somme. He has no known grave. The following was reported in the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer on 18 August 1916:

“Of fine physique, fond of sport and of all games, his charming disposition and reliable character endeared him to all with whom he came into contact. His captain writes of him ‘Owing to his great height he had little chance in the shallow trench with German snipers 20 yards away in the undergrowth, and he must have known it; but he at once gallantly went forward to where the heaviest fighting was taking place. Since he had been with us he had made himself most popular in the battalion, and was a splendid officer. We shall miss him greatly. He has died the finest death of all in one of the most splendid actions in which the battalion has been engaged’.”

His father received his two service medals, the Victory Medal (awarded to all those who entered a theatre of war) and the British War Medal, posthumously.

Anthony is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in the Somme, France, on the War Memorial of Eton College and on the War Memorial at Wramplingham Church.

Thiepval Memorial, France