Name
John Arthur Gascoyne-Cecil (MC)
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
27/08/1918
25
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Royal Field Artillery
75th Bde.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
M C
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BUCQUOY ROAD CEMETERY, FICHEUX
VI. D. 23.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hatfield Town Memorial, Hatfield In Memoriam Book, St Etheldredas Church Window, Hatfield (Bishops Hatfield)
Pre War
Son of the Bishop of Exeter & Lady Florence Cecil.
In both the 1901 & 1911 Census, John was living with his parents, Rupert Vincent Gascoyne Cecil & Florence Mary Gascoyne Cecil, and siblings at St Audrey’s Rectory, Old Hatfield. His father was the Rector for Hatfield (later to become the Bishop of Exeter). John Arthur was 18 in 1911.
He joined the Royal Field Artillery and was Cazetted to Second Lieutenant in 27th July, 1913
Wartime Service
John was a Captain in the Royal Horse Artillery and Royal Field Artillery and, as can be seen in the following London Gazette listings, was promoted to Captain.
6th December 1915.The under mentioned to be Adjutants......Lieutenant J.A. Gascoyne-Cecil Territorial Force Dated 31st 1915.
June 1917. The under mentioned to be acting Captain 25th Apr. 1917. Lt. J. A. Gascoyne-Cecil,
The Bishops Hatfield Parish Magazine published extracts from John:
February 1915 issue: “...The firing line was quite interesting; German shells were dropping in one spot a hundred yards away quite regularly; they have been doing so for the last month because the enemy thinks there is a battery there. The shells make a most unpleasant screech, rather like the whistle of a S.E.R. engine, and then a large bang. It looks as if we were for a dull time. I’ve seen a ruined church and village which was a desolate sight.......We are in comfortable quarters, but the guns shake and worry one. At present the people who are suffering are the infantry and horses. We lose horses daily from the cold. It snowed all day today. The frozen feet our men have are awful from being in the mud all day. I wonder what it will be like after the war. The whole thing is so frightfully cold-blooded...............War has lost its glamour for me. When you spend hours with under horsed ammunition wagons stuck in the mud by the side of a Belgian paved road, rain in torrents all the time, the horses jibbing, heavy motor lorries passing with food for the men to kill men, and motor ambulances passing back full’ and smooth–going seeming to know what suffering cargo they carry; above all, the almost continuous booming of guns and the distant rattle of rifles, permeate right into yourself. At night the horizon is lighted up by star shells and by some house burning or hayrick......”.
John Cecil
May 1915 issue: Extracts from Letters from the Front-
"April 16th 1915:
..........One gets so deadly sick of the sounds of guns and rifles........ Its much more interesting here. In this position the Germans seem to surround one on all sides. One is penisulated almost. At night the star shells go up on all sides. The ground is rather flat and woody, so observing has to be done from the firing trenches by means of a periscope. The view is very limited in a periscope which makes observing very difficult, as unless the rounds burst fairly accurately, one misses them altogether. There was great excitement in T’s column the other day; a couple of Taubes came over and dropped bombs on to some of the wagons which were waiting in the square of the town. They had several horses killed and some men wounded.......
April 23rd 1915:
...........We observe from the fire trenches....I don’t know if I told you that before......which is interesting but rather useless as you can see very little from them except the German trench about a mile away........It is sometimes very hard to believe we are still at war. One goes through a delightful pine wood to the trenches. Everything is quiet except for an occasional zeep of a bullet and the twitter of birds. Everything is getting green and budding. Everything suggests newness – a fresh start. One goes a little further on. All the trees are smashed by shrapnel; there are shell holes full of stagnant water. The smell is a Rifle Van Wombley one. A little further on are the trenches where one finds a body of men intent on destroying life. In front of the trench some dead Frenchmen, I think they must be a relic from last year. A little on is a German trench and beyond that is a district which one speculates about perpetually. One takes the bearings of even the trees in order to gain some idea of the order of things. It’s all very interesting and absorbing..........The day before yesterday the Boches dropped about 60 6in. shells round the Batteries about here. ...........They contain cyanide and potassium or something like it, the effect was rather demoralizing. Ones eyes began to smart and a short time no one could see. In one Battery the shells fell fairly close and some of the men became unconscious. In other cases the men were violently sick. I think it is a terribly mean method of war.
John Cecil"
December 1915 issue:
"Marseilles, Nov 18, 1915
.....I don’t know how long I shall be here, perhaps a very short time. Nothing is known ........This place is most interesting. The streets are crowded all day and up to 1a.m. It is the most cosmopolitan crowd I’ve seen. French, Moroccans, Turcos, Greeks, Serbs, English, Indians, Americans............All the French soldiery wear medals. You see people who look like Turks wearing the Croix de la Guerre, and practically everybody wears the Legion of Honour. A few wounded but not many, French soldiers with their blue helmets. English soldiers looking dazed but happy. Much Entente Cordiale. Always ‘Abas les Boches but thank heaven for the War, it brings such trade to the belle ville. There is one music hall still going, that had a Franco-Britannic piece with a comic Scotchman by a bad French actor. I was with a Cameronian officer at the time so par politesse did not laugh.
John Cecil"
July 1915 issue:
"June 6th 1915:
....We have had a divisional move to a very quiet spot about the centre of the English lines. Nothing has happened here for months. The trenches are magnificent constructions about 300 to 600 yards away from the Germans, (though at one point the trenches are only about 30 yards apart and one can hear the Germans laughing and talking.) They actually have flower gardens in them. Water is laid on and all the trenches are carefully paved with bricks. The communication trench leading to the reserve trench is large enough to take horses down. Very different from where we come from......
18th June 1915:
.....I think you must really be having a more interesting time now than we are. Here it is very quiet. Our only excitement was a German mine blowing up a portion of our trenches. Otherwise everything is very peaceful. I suppose it is munitions or rather the lack of munitions that is causing the Russians to retreat. It is rather depressing though. The pity of it is we cannot make a bigger effort owing to our now acknowledged shortage........
21st June 1915:
The war was going to be over the middle of this month and as it won’t I think everyone is more or less depressed, especially as things seem to be going fairly well with the Germans. One redeeming feature is that their victory over the Russians is not due to their own frightfulness or power but rather to the sudden weakness of the Russians. After all the Bosches tried for five awful weeks to get through at Ypres and failed; while this second battle of Ypres was going on they lost ground at other parts of the Western line. Then when at last they gave up, they are able to drive the Russians helter skelter, who had only spades and picks and bayonets to fight with. Apparently people at home are saying Neuve Chapelle was a mistake. It was not. It was a failure which did more towards the completion of the war even so than all the winter campaign. Of course here we are more bored than depressed. We have to be hopelessly vigilant which is very wearying. I must say I should like to get away though from the sounds of war and responsibilities it entails........You talk about a recruiting meeting held in the open and that men had not joined yet. I would not worry them to join. Men who always consider themselves and their likes and dislikes, whose gods are themselves, are to put it vulgarly, no dam good in a show where every man has to sacrifice his likes continually and often himself after.
John Cecil"
February 1916 issue: "Mentioned in despatches – Lieut. John Cecil – Adjutant, 19th Brigade R.F.A."
March 1916 issue:
Salonika 27th January 1916
"Here it is very much colder. The night it freezes and there is snow on most of the hills, while the mountain of the gods is lovely and very reminiscent of Lunn’s Tours to Switzerland. A very bleak country, brown in the distance, and dried grass when you get close; earth a red colour, well described by khaki. Valleys are traced by deep mullahs, which are too deep to get a horse over. I think I’m in a position to picturefy, as I’ve only seen one day here. There are the wind and rain to relate. They say the wind is like that of Marseilles and the rain equatorial, but that I will leave to another letter.....What roguish lot these Greeks seem and look. They are very picturesque and poverty stricken in appearance, but perhaps it is the latter quality which makes them seem so bandittesgue. They say it is wise to carry a revolver always, but I think a knife would be more efficient and in keeping with the habit of the country. They have a most convenient multiplication system for foreigners – 3times 4 is 13, and 6times 3 is 19, and so on. They will argue they’re right till you have to give in, because that time is money is a motto reversed with them (in meaning only).........
John Cecil, 19th Brigade, R.F.A."
April 1916 issue:
"Near Salonika, 8th February 1916
.....We’ve been away the last week on a reconnaissance, which was interesting but not very exciting. The Bulgars are miles away and we are just sitting down, doing nothing as usual. The country was rather lovely; we were quite close to the nearest lake. The hills are full of shrubs of all kinds, with crocuses and other flowers just starting: the plains are marshy, with any amount of wild fowl. Some members of our party had guns they brought in France; they supplied the larder with geese, duck, snipe and woodcock. They say there are wolves; we saw none, but we heard jackals every night. Partridges, too with magpies, owls and hawks, besides lots of smaller birds are plentiful. There are no roads to shout about and villages are small and desolate. They have churches which are hard to recognise as such, and quaint-looking old priests with a a kind of top hat and flowing robes. The houses are all of stone and mud and very squat. The family pets – such as pigs, donkeys, ponies, cows and hens, turkeys and ducks – stroll about the villages, making them look homely. Tiny donkeys are used for carrying huge bundles of wood or hay, etc., pannier fashion. Their women all wear trousers like the men; the only difference is that whereas the men’s are baggy where they sit down and tight around the calves, the women’s are baggy all the way down. The weather has been good, and with the exception of one day which was very wet. Cold nights and hot days. The plains are planted with maize. Old Greek is quite like the like the modern and a very useful beginning; I find I can get what I want nearly always. The men always look like bandits. It is very curious there are Greek villages, Turkish and Bulgarians, quite close to each other; they all talk their own language, and employ them all in making roads. We arrived back yesterday, and to-day I went to S......; a more grubby crowd I’ve seldom seen. There are lots of women still veil their faces. I can quite sympathize if they have fine eyes and nothing else. Some of the folk are fair. Red hair is not extraordinary, though black hair and nasty low faces are more common. Masses of Greek soldiery, looking very dirty, stroll the town. In the back streets all windows are latticed, a relic of the Turks, like the minarets, which are certainly very pretty, they say there is a Church and Mosque which are worth visiting, but I have not seen them yet. From all appearances it seems likely we shall be here for some time doing absolutely nothing.
John Cecil, 19th Brigade, R.F.A."
May 1916 issue:
"15th March 1916
.......I don’t think I told you about the tortoises, there are a lot here. You find shells all over the place. Our General has a theory that they change shells and that those we find are to let or perhaps are in insanitary surroundings. They are quite interesting animals. The doctor left one in a box over a week and it was quite cheery when discovered. They are said to feed on insects and immature plants, they catch flies by coming up and out of their shells so slowly that the fly cannot see them coming. Besides them there are lizards which are very hard to catch; besides it’s undignified. The birds here are numerous, from the crow to the golden eagle who flies for the hour without winking an eyelid or flapping a wing. Herons too, are comic birds. I was quite excited though when my groom told me he had seen an ostrich sitting in a tree. He meant a stork, but it wasn’t even that, only a lowly heron. I have spent and shall spend most of my time surveying. It’s quite interesting examining the country you hope, I should and ought to say, might bombard one day. The place is the site of the final stand of the Turks before they were driven into the Chalcedon promontory or whatever they call it. There are all the trenches and the graveyards. Masses of folk must have been killed here to judge by the size of them. It’s really a lovely country. There is splendid riding and jolly hills. Many flowers I’ve never seen before and lots I have. I found a spring onion growing wild today, a relic of past civilization. The villages are only half habited; many of the houses are in ruins. I expect in the time of the Turks this was a very prosperous place. At present cultivation is carried on in a very homely manner – a wooden plough drawn by a yoke of oxen or buffalo. They only plough about two or three inches and then in wonderfully wiggly lines. There are Greek relics, gold ornaments have been found when digging trenches but I’ve no luck. I’ve only seen a few odd bits of pillars, they might have been drain pipes but I don’t think so, as this is not a sanitary land. The people are quite friendly as a rule but very wiffy so I don’t like holding prolonged attempts at conversational intercourse. The children are very pretty but beauty in a woman is a thing of the past, at ten years old. Some of the boys have truly Grecian features; one generally takes that as a sign of rascality and a cheat........
John Cecil, 19th Brigade R.F.A."
February 1918 issue: Promotions "We have great pleasure in noting that Major John Cecil, R.F.A. has received the Military Cross."
October 1918 issue: "Capt. John A Gascoyne-Cecil. In these pages it is especially grievous to record the death of a third son of the late Rector and Lady Florence. Capt. John A. Gascoyne-Cecil, M.C. to give his full title to the boy whom we all think of as “Jack” has proved himself worthy of the name he bore and has brought fresh honours to it. Already a Territorial officer before the outbreak of War, he was one of those mobilised at the outbreak of War and at Christmas 1914, he was sent to the front with his battery. He was mentioned in despatches after the 2nd battle of Ypres and eventually transferred to the Salonika front. It is believed, an open secret, that having obtained leave to return to England, he insisted on being sent to the Western Front that he might experience the brunt of the fighting, not considering that his was sufficiently arduous task in the Balkans. Within 3 weeks of his return to France he was killed by a shell while reconnoitring a very forward position.
This was all of a piece with his intensely virile energy, which would have carried him far in life: he was absolutely fearless physically and morally, very tenacious of his purpose and of a affection which accords generally with men of a softer mode. He left his mark in whatever society he was in and we can believe that “Officers, N.C.O.s and men placed thorough reliance on his leadership which was of a very high order”. This is the price which we shall have paid for peace, the very best that England had to give.
The following letter has been received in answer to a telegram from some of the older inhabitants of Hatfield. “The Bishop of Exeter and Lady Florence Cecil wish to thank all their friends for their telegram of sympathy in their sorrow. They wish they could see each individually to thank them better, but must content themselves with the most heartfelt line of gratitude."
The Herts. Advertiser dated 7th and 14th September 1918, reported:
"Capt John Cecil.
Bishop of Exeter’s third son killed in France.
The deepest sympathy of the inhabitants of Hatfield pours out to the Bishop of Exeter and Lady Florence Cecil in the loss of their third son, Capt John Cecil, who was killed in France on August 27th. Capt Cecil joined the Army immediately war broke out. In the early days of the war he saw service in France with the Artillery and from France was drafted to Salonica and Mesopotamia. He only returned to France a short time before his death.
Capt J A Gascoyne-Cecil.
Killed seventeen days after going to France.
Capt J A Gascoyne Cecil, M C, third son of the Bishop of Exeter and Lady Florence Cecil and nephew of the Marquess and Marchioness of Salisbury, whose death in action was announced in our last issue was born in March 1895 (?) and was educated at Westminster, where he became xxxxxxx and represented the school at Aldershot and in the Public Schools gymnastics competition. He was employed at Vickers Works and was a Territorial officer in a Howitzer battery composed chiefly of Vickers’ staff for a year before the outbreak of war. At Christmas 1914, the Brigade of which his battery was a unit was converted into a Divisional Ammunitions column and sent to the front. Soon after, however, he succeeded in getting attached to a Regular battery and was given a section. He remained in his new brigade for three years and became brigade adjutant and was promoted to captain. That year he was awarded the Military Cross. Returning from Salonica he went out to the front on August 10th and was killed on the 27th by a shell while reconnoitring a very forward position for a section of guns.
Deceased’s commanding officer writes:-
“He had taken over the battery at a very strenuous time when I had been slightly wounded and throughout the time he was commanding behaved with the greatest gallantry and dash. The officers, N C Os and men placed thorough reliance on his leadership, which was of a very high order.” Capt Cecil’s youngest brother, Rupert, Lieutenant, Bedfordshire Regiment, was killed in July,1915, his eldest brother, Randall, lieutenant R H A, was killed in December 1917 and his second brother, Capt. Victor Cecil, Hampshire Regiment has been twice severely wounded."
Awarded Victory Medal, British War Medal and Military Cross.
Additional Information
Eng & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1861-1941: Cecil, John Arthur Gascoyne of Baron Place Exeter, Captain R.F.A. M.C. died 27 August 1918 in France on active service. Administration, London, 12 August to the honourable right reverend William Ernest Gascoyne Cecil, Bishop of Exeter. Effects, £1203 5s. 5d.
His brothers Randle William and Rupert Edward also fell.
Hatfield Parish Council Souvenir Committee Ledger: Lady Florence Cecil (Mother) requested an “In Memoriam & Roll of Honour Album”.
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild
