Lieutenant George McFarquhar KELLY-LAWSON
5th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery

Date of birth: 3rd September 1896
Date of death: 9th August 1917

Killed in action aged 20
Buried at Bard Cottage Cemetery, Boezinghe Plot IV Row B Grave 5
He was born at the Hampden Estate, Jamaica on the 3rd of September 1896 the elder son of Dermot Owen Kelly-Lawson JP, sugar planter, and Charlotte Matilda (nee Smyth) of Hampden Great House, Hampden, Jamaica in the West Indies.

He was educated at George Watson's College from 1902 to 1906 and at the King’s School Canterbury from September 1909 to March 1915, where he was in Mr Reay's House. He was appointed as a monitor in January 1915 and became Head of House. During the 1914/15 season he played scrum half for the Rugby XV also earning his 2nd XI Cricket colours in 1913.

In 1915 the Cantuarian wrote the following of his rugby season:-

"Quicker as scrum half than he was, but still slow. Saves pluckily and makes some good openings."

He served as a Corporal in the Officer Training Corps and was awarded the Waddington Gift in 1915.

In February 1915, while still at school he underwent the examinations for the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in which he passed 83rd. He underwent a medical examination which was held in London on the 1st of March 1915 where it was recorded that he was five feet six inches tall and that he weighed 138lbs. He entered the Academy later that month. On leaving the Academy he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery on the 27th of October 1915. He was posted to the 5th Siege Battery, joining them in the field on the 11th of January 1916. He returned to England on leave from the 13th to the 22nd of May 1916 and from the 20th to the 30th of April 1917.

On the 9th of August 1917, during the Third Battle of Ypres, the the battery was located at La Belle Alliance Farm, to the east of the Yser Canal, between Ypres and Langemarck. The war diary records that they fired 175 shells at Langemark- Gheluvelt in preparation for an infantry attack which successfully captured those positions on the 16th. During an exchange of counter battery fire from the German artillery, two officers, Captain E.W. Milne and 2nd Lieutenant R.J. Heelas were wounded and George Kelly-Lawson was killed when a shell hit their dugout.

His father received the following telegram dated the 13th of August 1917: -

"Deeply regret to inform you that 2nd Lt G. McF. K. Lawson 5th Siege Btty was killed in action August 9th. The Army Council express their sympathy."

His relations sent a letter to the school which was published in the Cantuarian:-

"We had letters from his Lieut., Chaplain, Colonel and Lieut. Colonel all speaking so highly of his conscientiousness and faithfulness to duty, and that he was much loved by his men and Non Coms, and that his sweet temper was a never failing help to his Battery He with another Sub and his Captain were in a dugout when a shell hit the top and he was instantaneously killed while standing at the telephone."

He is commemorated on the war memorial at George Watson's College and by a stained glass window at the Hampden United Church in Jamaica. He is also commemorated on his maternal grandfather’s gravestone at Corstorphine Old Parish Church, Edinburgh.

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