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Captain Henry Crossley FIELDING
38th Dogras attached to the 59th Scinde Rifles (Frontier Force) Indian Army Date of birth: 17th October 1885 Date of death: 12th September 1915 Killed in action aged 29 Buried at Laventie Military Cemetery Plot IV Row G Grave 6
Henry Crossley Fielding was born at Wimbledon on the 17th of October 1885 the second son of Felix Fielding, a stockbroker, and Laura Jemima (nee Sheil) Fielding of "Knockallen", Worple Road, Wimbledon. He was christened at the Holy Trinity and St Peter Church, South Wimbledon on the 20th of December 1885. He was educated at Shrewsbury House Preparatory School, Surbiton and at Lancing College where he won an Exhibition and where he was in School House from September 1899 to April 1901. He went on to the Royal Military College Sandhurst in 1903 and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant on the Unattached List of the Indian Army on the 13th of August 1904. On the 24th of April 1906 he was attached to the 38th Dogras as a 2nd Lieutenant, with seniority from the 13th of August 1904, where he became a Double Company Officer on the 18th of June 1906 and was based at Malakand on the North West Frontier. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 13th of November 1906. On the 30th of April 1912 he obtained his Aero Club Certificate (No. 212) at Brooklands flying a Bristol Biplane. He was promoted to Captain on the 13th of August 1913. He was attached to the 59th Scinde Rifles on the 31st of December 1914 and joined them in the field in January 1915. On the 16th of February 1915 Henry Fielding was in his billet at Richebourg St Vaast when heavy shelling began during which he and the battalion interpreter, Monsieur Paul Ries were wounded. On the 1st of September 1915 the battalion went into the line at Rue des Bois, Rouge Croix near Neuve Chappelle. During the night of the 11th of September Henry Fielding and Lieutenant Scobie led an officer's patrol for a reconnaissance of no man's land to note any ditches which would have to be bridged in the event of an advance. When they returned and were only a few yards from their trenches, there was a burst of enemy fire and Fielding fell, shot through the heart, and died instantly. The battalion history records:- "This officer had been with the regiment since January and was a very great loss. He was universally popular, and a most keen and thoroughly efficient soldier in every respect." He was married to Marjorie Isobel (nee Legg) at St Mark's Church, Surbiton on the 12th of April 1915; she never remarried. He is commemorated on the war memorial at Shrewsbury House Preparatory School and on the memorial at the Royal Military College Sandhurst.

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