2nd Lieutenant Frederick Claud Strachan PARBURY
B Squadron, 1/1st Surrey Yeomanry (Queen Mary's Regiment)

Date of birth: 26th June 1883
Date of death: 23rd April 1956

Died aged 72
Buried at Kitale Cemetery, Trans Nzoia, Kenya Lot 35
Frederick Claud Strachan Parbury was born at 3 De Vere Gardens, Kensington on the 26th of June 1883 the second son of Charles Parbury, a businessman, and Annie (nee Strachan) Parbury of 7 Lowndes Square, London. He was christened at St Stephen's Church, Kensington on the 1st of August 1883.

He was educated at Hazelwood School until December 1896, where he was a member of the Cricket XI and 1896. He was member of the Football XI in 1895 and in 1896 when he was Captain. He was Head of School in 1896. The school magazine wrote of his 1895 cricket season: - "Improved immensely in batting, playing a fine forward game. A fair field, and sometimes makes a good catch, but cannot be called safe. May possibly make a bowler."

They wrote the following on his football season that year: - "Goal, very quick on to the ball but did not always clear quick enough, generally fair and sometimes brilliant."

They wrote the following of his 1896 cricket season: - " Terribly disappointing at first, after the excellent promise of last year, entirely owing to his inability to get his left leg anyway near the ball. However, he came on lately, and if he is allowed to stay in, is the fastest rungetter in the XI. A really good lob bowler with perhaps more break than pitch. An unreliable field."

They also wrote of his 1896 football season: - "Captain, perhaps as good a goal keeper as we have ever had, active and fairly safe, and a good kick."

On leaving the school the magazine wrote: - "....goes to Marlborough, and will do us credit in every way if he gets found out. He has more than average abilities in work, play and music, and has been a very useful Head of School."

He went on to Marlborough College, where he was in Summerfield House from January 1897 to July 1901. In September 1901 he went on to Trinity College Cambridge where he achieved a BA. He later moved to Australia.

He was married to Doris Edith Gibson (nee Blomfield) on the 30th of April 1908 at All Saints Church Woollahra, New South Wales in Australia. They had three children, Graham Strachan, born on the 18th of November 1910, Pamela, born on the 28th of April 1915 and Claud Richard, born in January 1920, and they lived at 12 Kensington Court Gardens, London.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Surrey Yeomanry on the 8th of March 1915 and he embarked for service in Salonica on the 16th of January 1917, spending two years there. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 1st of July 1917 and later served in France where he was admitted to hospital and for seven days was wrongly reported in the Times (dated the 4th of November), and in the school magazine (January 1919 edition), to have died of pneumonia on the 30th of October 1918. He had in fact survived and arrived back in England on Armistice Day spending three weeks in bed with congestion of the lungs but recovered fully. On the 13th of January 1921 he passed into the Territorial Army Reserve.

On the 10th of June 1922 he boarded the SS "Ulysses" at Glasgow bound for Melbourne where he worked as a merchant for Parbury, Henty & Company of 56 York Street, Sydney and was later a director of the Wallahra Coal Company.

He died at Kitale in Kenya and his funeral took place on the 25th of April 1956.

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