Major Cecil Stafford Charles WYATT-EDGELL
1/6th Battalion Devonshire Regiment attached to the 9th (Service) Battalion and Labour Corps

Date of birth: 20th December 1881
Date of death: 24th May 1967

Died aged 85
Buried at St Anthony’s Church, Cowley in Devon
Cecil Stafford Charles Wyatt-Edgell was born at Cowley Place, Upton Pyne in Devon on the 20th of December 1881 the younger son of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Wyatt-Edgell DL JP, 1st Devon Artillery, and Frances Albina Gresham (nee Leveson-Gower) Wyatt-Edgell of Cowley Place, Upton Pyne.

He was educated at Hazelwood School until July 1895 where he was Head of School. The school magazine wrote the following of him when he left: - "...adds another name to the honourable roll of the Heads of the School, and in the consistent example of an upright and blameless life has equalled the best of them. A most industrious and conscientious worker at everything that he set before him, a capital musician and violinist and member of the choir, he will be a great acquisition to Eton where he will be accompanied in the same house as L. Eddis."

He went on to Eton College where he was in Miss Evan’s house and was a member of the Shooting VIII. In 1900 he won the Public Schools Shooting Match at Bisley with a score of 57. He left later that year and went to New College Oxford where he was a member of the University Shooting VIII in the varsity shooting competition of 1902.

On the 12th of March 1908 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s School, Warwick Cadet Corps attached to the 2nd Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and on the 31st of July he transferred to the Junior Division of the Officer Training Corps of the same school. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 27th of May 1910 and ceased his service with the contingent on the 1st of November 1910. He became a chemistry teacher at Wolverhampton Grammar School and on the 14th of February 1911 he was appointed as a Lieutenant in the Wolverhampton Grammar School Contingent, Junior Division of the Officer Training Corps, being promoted to Captain on the 24th of April 1910 a position he held until 1915.

On the 8th of March 1915 he was appointed as a Temporary Captain in the 1/6th Battalion Devonshire Regimental where he was Officer Commanding the regimental depot and served with the regiment in France from the 3rd of October 1916.

On the 4th of April 1917 he was appointed as Draft Conduction Officer as a General Staff Officer Grade 2, which involved escorting drafts of reinforcements across the channel to France. He relinquished the position on the 15th of August the same year. On the 31st of January 1917 he transferred to the Labour Corps, was promoted to Major on the 11th of April and was given command of a Chinese Labour Detachment near Boulogne.

He was married to Mildred Ellen Grace Bradford (nee Hillyard), the widow of Captain Cecil Aubrey Bradford of the Yorkshire Regiment, on the 30th of December 1922 at Bickleigh, Tiverton; they had two daughters, Pamela Frances born on the 28th of March 1924 and Janet Mildred Pricilla born on the 3rd of February 1929. He also had a stepdaughter, Peggy from his wife’s first marriage. While he was teaching at Wolverhampton Grammar School the family lived at Tettenhall Wood, Wolverhampton and latterly at his family home of Cowley Place, in Devon. He later moved to Shropshire where he continued to teach chemistry and lived at Old Hall, Church Road, Shifnal.

He was awarded the Territorial Decoration on the 5th of May 1925.

He died suddenly and his funeral took place on the 27th of May 1967.
Went on to Eton College

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