Major John Charles Temple GASKELL
2nd Battalion 69th Punjabis attached to the 129th Duke of Connaught's Own Baluchis

Date of birth: 24th June 1883
Date of death: 5th August 1917

Killed in action aged 34
Buried at Dar Es Salaam War Cemetery Plot I Row AA Grave 7
He was born at Peterborough on the 24th of June 1883 the second son of the Reverend Thomas Kynaston Gaskell, Rector of Longthorpe, and Horatia Octavia (nee Hugo). He was christened at St Helena’s Church, Folksworth in Peterborough on the 29th of July 1883.

In 1891 he was a boarder at a school at 87 Woodside Green, South Norwood, Croydon in Surrey. He then attended the King's School Canterbury for one year from January to December 1896, before going on to Haileybury School where he was in Melvill House from 1897 to 1900.

On leaving school he passed into the Royal Military College Sandhurst on the 15th of September 1901, passing out on the 30th of July 1902. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Northamptonshire Regiment on the 22nd of October 1902 and lived at 74 Madeley Road, Ealing in West London.

He sailed for Bombay aboard the Transport 'Sicilia' on the 15th of January 1903 and transferred to the 63rd Palamcottah Light Infantry on the 30th of March 1904. He served for some years in India, learning to speak four different Indian languages. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 22nd of January 1905 and to Captain on the 22nd of October 1911 by which time he was with the 69th Punjabis.

On the 7th of July 1914 he was married to Mary Agatha (nee Folds) at St Dunstan's Catholic Church at Woking in Surrey. They had two children, Harriett Mary, born on the 26th of April 1915 who died in childhood and Elizabeth Mary, born in 1916.

On the outbreak of war his regiment was sent to Quantara on the Suez Canal in Egypt and then on to Gallipoli where he was badly wounded by shrapnel in the chest on the 13th of May 1915, but recovered and returned to India. Early in 1917 he was attached to the 129th Duke of Connaught's Own Baluchis and joined the Expeditionary Force in East Africa.

He was promoted to Acting Major on the 4th of August 1917 while acting as second in command of the battalion.

He was killed in action at Nanyabi in East Africa now Tanzania.

His older brother, Lieutenant Commander Gerald Bruce Gaskell RN HMS “Good Hope”, was killed in action on the 1st of November 1914.

He is commemorated on a brass plaque at St Botolph’s Church, Longthorpe in Cambridgeshire now part of Peterborough, on the war memorial at Woking and on the memorial at Haileybury School. He is also commemorated on the memorial at the Royal Military College Sandhurst.
 

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