Colonel Warren Trotter Royal Marines Artillery

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Colonel Warren Francis Trotter RMA is an example of one of many former soldiers and officers recalled for active service in the First World War.

Here is a short biography about him which hopefully will provide some interesting reading.

Warren was born some five hundred miles from Mount Everest in the Himalayas on 18th October 1858. He was the sixth son of a merchant company father and was granted a commission as a Lieutenant at Royal Naval College in Greenwich aged seventeen. He passed out with a 1^st Class Certificate on 30th June 1878 and completed examinations in gunnery to qualify for the RMA. His very first posting was to the RMA depot at Fort Cumberland in Portsmouth. But, after seeing some initial service in Ireland as a coast guard, he was posted to HMS Superb upon the outbreak of the 1882 Egyptian war. When the Royal Navy bombarded the city of Alexandria, Superb fired three-hundred and ten shells into the city and after just three days the city surrendered. (General Wolseley later defeated the rebels at Tel el-Kebir). Lieutenant Trotter went ashore to Port Said with a battalion of Royal Marines and served as Adjutant and Quartermaster. He received the Egypt Medal with Clasp "Alexandria" along with the Khedive's Star for his services.

In 1886 Trotter was promoted to Captain and spent 1884 - 1887 stationed across the world from the Isle of Skye to Port Hamilton, off the coast of Korea. A return to England followed where he took part in recruitment drives before his becoming a Major in 1896 at the age of thirty-eight. He married in 1903 the daughter of Colonel Joseph Withers, Maud Lillian Withers.

On his fifty-fourth birthday Colonel Trotter was placed on the Retired List on account of his age in 1912.

It was merely three months into the war of 1914 when Trotter was recalled for active service. Although he never went to France he served first as Superintendent of the Royal Naval School of Music in Portsmouth before transferring to Fort Cumberland as OC of the RMA depot in June 1915. The RMA at this time was split into three brigades: Howitzer, Anti-Aircraft and Siege. Trotter was put in charge of the depots of the first two brigades overseeing the training of men, supplying of guns and administration of war materials there. To return to where his career first began nearly forty years earlier must have been a poignant moment to him.

On 19th June 1916 Trotter died of illness whilst visiting his wife and family on leave up in Cumbria aged fifty-seven. He gave all £22,500 (in today's money) to Maud along with his medals.

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