ianw Posted 5 October , 2010 Share Posted 5 October , 2010 I picked up a copy of Eden's autobiography "Another World" which covers the period between 1897 and 1919. He ended a Brigade major at 20 probably through a combination of talent and no little influence. On page 59 he is just about to join up and comments :- "These were miserable months for my mother. My brother Jack (Lt John Eden 12th Lancers) was killed on a cavalry patrol near Ypres in October 1914 ; my father died the following February ; and her brother Robin Gray, had been shot down in his aeroplane and taken prisoner. He tried repeatedly to escape ... and was soon to suffer solitary confinement for being a cousin of Edward Grey, then Foreign Secretary ". So at least some of the great and the good were doing their bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Upton Posted 5 October , 2010 Share Posted 5 October , 2010 "These were miserable months for my mother. My brother Jack (Lt John Eden 12th Lancers) was killed on a cavalry patrol near Ypres in October 1914..." http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=488339 Name: EDEN, JOHN Initials: J Nationality: United Kingdom Rank: Lieutenant Regiment/Service: 12th (Prince of Wales's Royal) Lancers Age: 26 Date of Death: 17/10/1914 Additional information: Son of Sir William and Lady Sybil Frances Eden, of Windlestone Hall, Ferryhill, Co. Durham. Older brother of Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1955 to 1957. Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead Grave/Memorial Reference: IV. D. 6. Cemetery: LARCH WOOD (RAILWAY CUTTING) CEMETERY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGWR Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 I think that he also lost another brother at Jutland (HMS Indefatigable). Regards, AGWR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGWR Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 But I can't seem to find him on CWGC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Windlestone Hall is still there. Now owned by the local council, I believe. It`s the first time I came across the term "haha" in relation to a house. Not many of those in Blackburn where I was brought up! I was impressed when I read that the Edens had a private station built on the LNER main line, London - Edinburgh, for their personal use. Eden Snr was a LNER director. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz in Eastbourne Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 I think that he also lost another brother at Jutland (HMS Indefatigable). Yes, he did - Nicholas, who was only 16 and had been Anthony's best friend all through his childhood. Anthony (aged 19) was at Ploegsteert Wood with the Yeoman Rifles when he heard the news. As he said 'It was considered in those days a suitable age for a midshipman, not only to go into battle, but to be in charge of able seamen.' Nicholas is on CWGC, William Nicholas Eden d.31.5.1916. I am constantly using Another World as a source for the Yeoman Rifles, please see 21st Battalion KRRC - the original Yeomen, pages 3 and 4 for main Eden refs. It is beautifully written (I think) and on some aspects he is the main source of information. Changed my view of him completely - I'd just thought of him in connection with Suez. Liz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw Posted 6 October , 2010 Author Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Thanks for the info on his Jutland loss. I haven't got to 1916 yet. How sad. Picture of the family attached taken I guess in 1909 with the Great War as very distant summer thunder. From left - Timothy, Marjorie,, mother, Nicholas,father, Anthony, Jack standing behind Nicholas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonharley Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Alan Brooke seems to have thought that Eden's service in the Rifle Corps led to him favouring green jacket officers during the Second World War, specifically the Middle Eastern command in August, 1942 and the proposed employment of "Strafer" Gott and "Jumbo" Wilson: "I got level with him [Churchill] this time by suggesting that it was not astonishing that Eden should select old Green Jacket officers! This went home all right and he saw the logic of it and he was very nice." War Diaries 1939-1945. p. 291. Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz in Eastbourne Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Thanks for the info on his Jutland loss. I haven't got to 1916 yet. How sad. We should let you finish the book before making any more comments then! Liz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liz in Eastbourne Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Simon, that's interesting about Eden being thought to be biased towards Rifles officers in WW2. He probably couldn't help it! On the inside back of the dustjacket of Another World is the note: A proportion of any royalties received for this book will be donated to the Rifleman's Aid Society and to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund (Simon Eden Memorial). His 20-year old son Simon, Pilot Officer (Nav.) 62 Squadron, was killed on 23 June 1945 and is buried in the Taukkyau War Cemetery, Burma (CWGC). So to go back to Ian's original post, this family certainly did do their bit. Liz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AGWR Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Yes, he did - Nicholas, who was only 16 and had been Anthony's best friend all through his childhood. Anthony (aged 19) was at Ploegsteert Wood with the Yeoman Rifles when he heard the news. As he said 'It was considered in those days a suitable age for a midshipman, not only to go into battle, but to be in charge of able seamen.' Nicholas is on CWGC, William Nicholas Eden d.31.5.1916. I am constantly using Another World as a source for the Yeoman Rifles, please see 21st Battalion KRRC - the original Yeomen, pages 3 and 4 for main Eden refs. It is beautifully written (I think) and on some aspects he is the main source of information. Changed my view of him completely - I'd just thought of him in connection with Suez. Liz Many thanks, Liz. I really must read this book. Regards, AGWR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry_Reeves Posted 6 October , 2010 Share Posted 6 October , 2010 The fact is that the families of "great and the good" suffered just as much as anyone else and there is much information to support this. Jeremy Paxman in his book "Friends in High Places: Who Runs Britain? " looked at the auction catalogues for the post- war period and shows that many homes of the aristocracy came up for sale to pay off death duties, because those who were about to inherit had been killed during the war. Gerald Gliddon's "The Aristocracy and the Great War" reinforces this. I am sure that there will be forum members like me who are members of the National Trust, will have have visited the homes of some those mentioned in those publications, and will have seen the photographs of those men and their memorials in the churches close to, or even part of, those estates. To give an illustration of the above, I would draw attention to the hamlet of Winwick in Northamptonshire, the total population of which today is still just seventy. The church, which is adjacent to Winwick Manor, has two WW1 commemorative plaques. The first, a simple wooden device with a classical broken pediment, records the death of Benjamin Gupwell, a private soldier of the 2/4th Leicestershire Regiment who was killed in action in France on 20 April 1917. Benjamin was a shepherd. On the other side of the church is a substantial marble plaque incorporating the coat of arms of the family of Captain Geoffrey Stewart, Coldstream Guards, of Winwick Manor, killed in action on 22nd December 1914. Both families suffered the same grief. Prime Minister Herbert Asquith lost his son; Sir Walter Long, President of the Local Government Board, responsible for administering the Military Service Tribunals, lost his son; General Sir Edmund Allenby lost his son, and so the mournful role continued... TR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw Posted 6 October , 2010 Author Share Posted 6 October , 2010 Certainly this thread has made me think again about Anthony Eden who always comes across as patrician and aloof - well , he may well have had these traits but he and his family certainly put themselves on the line for their country in both wars. To lose his son so late in WW2 must have been a real body blow. I remember talking once to Arthur Halestrap who similarly lost a son in WW2. The sadness never left him, he said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James A Pratt III Posted 7 October , 2010 Share Posted 7 October , 2010 I think A Eden's son Simon was KIC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Clifton Posted 7 October , 2010 Share Posted 7 October , 2010 Simon, that's interesting about Eden being thought to be biased towards Rifles officers in WW2. He probably couldn't help it! There is a story that in the Suez deployment Eden complained that he was not informed that the Rifle Brigade had been deployed, and that in future the battalion was not to be moved, or given missions, without his personal permission. The War Office wisely ignored this. If this story is true, it may help to explain the extent to which his judgment was impaired around that time, apparently as a result of the after-effects of a botched operation. Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francon Posted 12 October , 2010 Share Posted 12 October , 2010 just a footnote ..four BRITISH PRIME MINISTERS served in the army in W.W.1. ...beside ANTHONY EDEN there was of course WINSTON CHURCHILL .. HAROLD MACMILLEN served in the GRENADIER GUARDS and was severly wounded in the hip on the SOMME that took many years to heal .. CLEMENT ATTLEE served with the SOUTH LANCASHIRE REGIMENT ..he was the last but one to be evacuated from SUVLA BAY ,,GALLIPOLI ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted 12 October , 2010 Share Posted 12 October , 2010 But I can't seem to find him on CWGC. I think this is him. EDEN, WILLIAM NICHOLAS Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geert Spillebeen Posted 24 September , 2012 Share Posted 24 September , 2012 The church of Kruiseke (village, part of Wervik town), near Ypres was built with the help of the Eden family, after WW1. There is a stone on the wall outside the church to remember Lieutenant John Eden, who died near that place on 17 Oct.1914. He was with the 12th Lancers. He was was shot in an ambush near America Hill, a spot nearby. Died some days later. 2 weeks after that another lieutenant (Casenove Musgrave 'Bob' Wroughton) was killed too. Wroughton was Sir.Robert Baden-Powell's ADC for some time, during a tout to the UAS just before WW.1. He was one of the first boy-scouts, attending the 1st camp on Brownsea Island. I did some research & publishing in 2007 about these boy-scouts & WW.1. (Published in Dutch, in Belgium) That's how I found out about Lt.Eden. If anyone should be interested I can send a copy of the Regimental Diary noting the death of Lt.John Eden. MORE ABOUT THAT CHURCH a Best Regards GEERT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geert Spillebeen Posted 24 September , 2012 Share Posted 24 September , 2012 The church of Kruiseke (village, part of Wervik town), near Ypres was built with the help of the Eden family, after WW1. There is a stone on the wall outside the church to remember Lieutenant John Eden, who died near that place on 17 Oct.1914. He was with the 12th Lancers. He was was shot in an ambush near America Hill, a spot nearby. Died some days later. 2 weeks after that another lieutenant (Casenove Musgrave 'Bob' Wroughton) was killed too. Wroughton was Sir.Robert Baden-Powell's ADC for some time, during a tout to the UAS just before WW.1. He was one of the first boy-scouts, attending the 1st camp on Brownsea Island. I did some research & publishing in 2007 about these boy-scouts & WW.1. (Published in Dutch, in Belgium) That's how I found out about Lt.Eden. If anyone should be interested I can send a copy of the Regimental Diary noting the death of Lt.John Eden. MORE ABOUT THAT CHURCH of Kruiseke & that STONE => www.WO1.be see: http://www.wo1.be/ned/database/dbDetail.asp?subtypeID=13&typeid=1&ItemID=6168&lID=3# Best Regards GEERT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flintwich Posted 24 September , 2012 Share Posted 24 September , 2012 I believe, Eden, Churchill and Hitler all served in the Plugstreet Wood area. Al Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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