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Captain Lionel Charles Alfred CURTIES
8th (Service) Battalion East Kent Regiment attached 72nd Infantry Brigade Headquarters Date of birth: 13th March 1885 Date of death: 26th September 1915 Killed in action aged 30 Commemorated on the Menin Gate Panel 56
Lionel Charles Alfred Curties was born at Chald House, Westgate Common, Thomes in Yorkshire on the 13th of March 1885 the younger son of the Reverend Thomas Arthur Curties MA OL Vicar of St Michael’s Church, Wakefield and Ellen (nee Statter) Curties later of Grove House, Great Chart, Ashford in Kent. He was christened by his father at St Michael’s Church, Wakefield on the 6th of April 1885. He was educated at Lancing College where he was in Seconds House from April 1899 to July 1903 and where he was a Private in the Officer Training Corps from 1900. On qualifying he was articled to the solicitors F.G. Stenning of Maidstone for five years, passed the Law Society Intermediate Examination on the 16th of November 1906 and qualified in 1909. On the 23rd of August 1905 he obtained a commission in the 1st Volunteer Battalion The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) Militia but resigned his commission on the 19th of May 1907. Following the outbreak of war he applied for a commission on the 14th of August 1914 expressing a preference for the East Kent Regiment. He forwarded three letters in support of his application from Alan Haig-Brown, Commanding Officer of the Lancing Contingent of the Officer Training Corps, Bernard Tower, Head Master of Lancing from 1901 to 1909 and Mr G.M.T. Smyth MA, Assistant Master at Lancing from 1896 to 1930. He attended a medical examination at the Buffs Depot in Canterbury on the 15th of August at which he was declared to be in good health. Impatient with the delay in getting a commission he enlisted at Westminster as Private 3642 in the 19th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (2nd Public Schools), University and Public Schools Corps on the 2nd of September 1914. At his medical examination, which was held on the same day, it was recorded that he was 5 feet 11 /2 inches tall with blue eyes and dark hair. On the same day he wrote to the War Office saying that he had enlisted and that he hoped it wouldn't delay his commission. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 8th Battalion East Kent Regiment on the 22nd of September 1914 and was discharged from the Royal Fusiliers the following day. He was promoted to Lieutenant on the 25th of November 1914. He was transferred to the General List, promoted to Captain and to Brigade Machine Gun Officer of 72nd Infantry Brigade, 24th Division, and attached to the Staff Headquarters on the 14th of June 1915. He landed in France, at Boulogne, with 72nd Brigade on the 1st of September 1915. On the 25th of September 1915 the British offensive began at Loos. That evening the 8th Battalion East Kent Regiment moved forward across the old German front line to occupy trenches which had been the German second line to continue the attack the following morning. They had originally been ordered to make an attack on Hulluch that night but this had been postponed. In the event they received orders at 10.30am to attack the German third line at Hulluch at 11am, over a distance of one mile. At the appointed hour they went over the top in support of the 9th Battalion East Surrey Regiment and advanced under heavy and persistent shelling. As they crossed a depression in the ground to the south of Hulluch they came under heavy machine gun fire in enfilade and casualties mounted. When they reached the German line they were met by thick belts of uncut barbed wire and despite the efforts made to cut, or get through it, they were unable to advance further. When the Division on their right withdrew they were under enfilade fire once more and at 11.55am the order came to withdraw. They fell back some six hundred yards to the shelter of some old trenches and endured further shelling for the next four and a half hours. They were relieved that night having suffered casualties of 24 officers and 610 other ranks which included their Commanding Officer, Colonel Frederick Charles Romer, and Lionel Curties. His parents received the following telegram:- "Deeply regret to inform you that Capt. L.C.A. Curties 72nd Infy Bde Hdqtrs was missing believed killed between 25/27 Sept. Lord Kitchener expresses his sympathy". A Private from the Brigade wrote:- “Everybody liked him and admired him. His men did more; they loved him. They would have done anything for the Captain.” He was extremely fond of literature and very musical. He wrote poetry which was published from time to time in the London periodicals. Although his date of death is recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as the 26th of October the regimental history records that he fell on the 26th of September. He is commemorated on a private memorial at Great Chart in Kent.

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