Lieutenant Druce Hervey BUCKLAND
6th (Reserve) Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps attached to the 1st Battalion

Date of birth: 20th August 1896
Date of death: 21st October 1963

Survived aged 67
Commemorated at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium
Druce Hervey Buckland was born on the 20th of August 1896 at “Undercliff”, New South Head Road, Double Bay, Woollahra, East Sydney New South Wales in Australia the younger son of Thomas Buckland, a general merchant, of Kengie, Ascot in Berkshire and Ada Lucy (nee Greer) Buckland of Sydney Australia.

He was educated at Hazelwood School until July 1909. He was a member of the Cricket XI in 1907, 1908 and 1909 and of the Football XI in 1908. The school magazine wrote the following on his 1907 cricket season: - "Is a good catch and promises well for the future in all departments of the game."

Of his 1908 cricket season they wrote: - "Should also, unless we are mistaken, make a name for himself in the XI of next summer; at present his defence requires stiffening, and his bowling lacks steadiness, but both are full of promise."

Of his 1909 cricket season they wrote: - "A brilliant but not reliable bat. Should make a fine batsman some day, when he has learned to take coaching properly. A fair fast bowler and a most brilliant field."

They wrote the following on his 1908 football season: - "(Right half) - Has improved, but would probably be better suited at back; if only he will allow practice to perfect the strength of his left leg, next season may see him a shining light in defence."

On leaving the school the magazine wrote of him in their edition of January 1910: - "...was-much to our regret - prematurely summoned to Eton owing to changes consequent upon the sudden death of a House Master. Leaving us at the end of the summer, he was robbed of the distinction of being Hazelwood's head boy. For sport of every description he has a natural capacity. Great as his loss to the football XI proved, it is on the cricket pitch, the hockey field and the racquet court that he is seen to pre-eminent advantage."

He went on to Eton College where he was in A.E. Conybeare’s house leaving in 1914 and matriculating for Trinity College Cambridge, although he chose to defer his place due to the outbreak of war.

He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on the 30th of December 1914, was attached to the 1st Battalion and went to France on the 16th of October 1915. He joined his battalion at the front on the 19th of October and was invalided back the UK through illness on the 30th of August 1916 following a period in flooded trenches at Hebuterne; he was mentioned in despatches which appeared in the London Gazette of the 25th of May 1917.

After the war he took his place at Trinity College and played varsity tennis at Queen’s Club in 1919 and 1920. He moved to Australia in 1931 where he worked as a prospector and lived at Kalgoorie in New South Wales.

During the Second World War he returned to England where he served as a Naval Liaison Officer.

He was married to Ursula Margot (nee Powys-Lybbe), a journalist and photographer, at the St Marylebone Registry Office in London on the 16th of August 1946, after which the couple returned to Australia on the 21st of September 1946 on board the SS "Strathmore" and lived at Illaboo, Warrimo in New South Wales where he worked as a mining engineer; they had no children.

He died at Hornsby Hospital, Hornsby in New South Wales and was cremated at the Northern Suburbs Crematorium on the 28th of October 1963.

His brother, Lieutenant Thomas Adrian Buckland 7th Battalion Norfolk Regiment, died of wounds on the 18th of October 1915.
Went on to Eton College

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