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2nd Lieutenant Cyril Percy Mortimer DONOVAN (127541)
Royal Army Service Corps Date of birth: 15th November 1899 Date of death: 6th March 1941 Died aged 41 Buried at Benghazi War Cemetery Plot 7 Row D Grave 14
Cyril Percy Mortimer Donovan was born at East Horndon Rectory, East Horndon in Essex on the 15th of November 1899 the younger son of the Reverend Sydney Charles Donovan MA, Rector of All Saints Church, East Horndon, and Lilian Janet (nee Ashby) Donovan later of Haughton House, Churchill in Oxfordshire. He was educated at Praeloria House School, Folkestone and at Lancing College where he won a Scholarship and was in Heads House from September 1913 to Easter 1918. He was a member of the Football XI and the Running VIII in 1918 and was a Sergeant in the Officer Training Corps. He gained his School Certificate in 1916, Higher Certificate in 1917 was appointed as a House Captain, a Prefect and as Head of House in 1917. He was a member of the Officer Training Corps throughout his time at Lancing in which he rose to the rank of Corporal. While still at school he applied for a commission on the 28th of September 1917 in an application which was supported by the Reverend Bowlby, Head Master of Lancing College and in which he expressed a preference for either the Royal Artillery, the Machine Gun Corps or the infantry. When he had left school he joined No. 3 Royal Field Artillery Officer Cadet School at Weedon on the 3rd of June 1918 and on the completion of his training he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on the 18th of February 1919. He went on to Keble College Oxford in October 1919 where he was a member of the college Football XI from 1920 to 1922 and of the Cross Country Running team in 1920 and 1921. He achieved a BA in 1922. He relinquished his commission on the 1st of September 1921 On leaving university he entered the Civil Service in Rhodesia and later became an assistant schoolmaster at Ruzawi Preparatory School in Rhodesia and at Parktown School, Mountain View in Johannesburg. Following the outbreak of war, he returned to England from Durban to re-enlist in the army on board the SS "Capetown Castle", landing at Southampton on the 27th of January 1940, and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps on the 20th of April 1940. He is commemorated on the war memorial at Ruzawi Preparatory School, near Marandellas in Zimbabwe.

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