Name
Gurth Swinnerton Blandy (MC)
11/10/1878
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
24/04/1917
38
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Royal Army Medical Corps
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star, British War and Victory Medals
Military Cross
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ETAPLES MILITARY CEMETERY
XVII. C. 9.
France
Headstone Inscription
"ALSO CAPT. G. C. BLANDY 2ND ROYAL WARWICKSHIRE REGIMENT KILLED 9TH OCT 1917"
UK & Other Memorials
London Colney Village Memorial, University of Edinburgh Roll of Honour 1914-1919, Ipswich Cenotaph, St Mary at Finchley Church Roll of Honour
Pre War
Gurth Swinnerton BLANDY was born on 11th October 1878, in Woolwich, London/Kent, son of William Poyntz Blandy a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and Nina Eliza Swinnerton Blandy (nee Dyer). One of their seven children although two died in infancy.
His parents married on 11th September 1872, at Holy Trinity Church, Paddington, London.
He was Baptised on 8th November 1878, at St Mary Magdalene, Woolwich, London/Kent.
1881 Census records Gurth aged 2, living with his maternal Grandmother Eliza Dyer, brother Stephen (7) and sister Nina (5) at 2 Nelson Terrace, Hampton Road, Brentford, Middx. The family had a live-in Governess and two Domestic Servants.
Gurth attended Sheffield Royal Grammar School.
1891 Census records Gurth (12), visiting Francis William Underwood a surgeon and his family in Moseley, Kings Norton, Worcestershire
He attended Edinburgh University as a Medical Student from 1895
His mother Nina Eliza Blandy died in 1896, aged 44, in Eccleshall Bierlow, Sheffield, Yorkshire.
His father Colonel Willliam Poyntz Blandy remarried on 14th June 1899, at Holy Trinity church, Paddington, London.
Gurth enlisted on 10th January 1900 at Edinburgh for one year with the Colours in the Imperial Yeomanry to serve in South Africa, (Boar War) issued with the service number 8457, at the time he was a 4th year Medical Student, Gurth served in South Africa with 6th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry, he returned to the UK on 1st March 1901, and discharged on 10th April 1901, he was awarded the Queens South Africa Medal 1901, Cape Colony & Transvaal Clasps.
1901 Census was taken on the night of 31st March 1901, Gurth (22), is recorded as a Student of Medicine living with his widowed grandmother Eliza Dyer, at 17 St Johns Park, Islington, London/Middx. His grandmother had a live-in Domestic Servant.
1911 Census records Gurth aged 32, as a 2nd Assistant Medical Officer at the Middlesex County Asylum, Napsbury, St Albans, Herts.
Wartime Service
Gurth enlisted in August 1914, taking a temporary commission as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), attached to 29th Division, Royal Engineers, (later promoted to Captain). He went to France in November 1914. Awarded the Military Cross (MC) in June 1916.
Gurth died on 24th Aprill 1917, at No 20 General Hospital, Camiers, France aged 38, of Gun Shot Wounds (GSW). He is buried in Etaples Military Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France. Grave XVII. C. 9.
Additional Information
His effects of £88-13s-02d, went to his father Colonel William Poyntz Blandy.
His father, Colonel W. P. Blandy, ordered his headstone inscription while living at Corder Road, Ipswich, it reads: "ALSO CAPT. G. C. BLANDY 2ND ROYAL WARWICKSHIRE REGIMENT KILLED 9TH OCT 1917" .
His younger brother Gerald Castleton Blandy emigrated to Canada in May 1914, enlisted in the Canadian Army in April 1915, on completion of his training he left Canada on 1st July with the Canadian Expeditionary Force arrived in Plymouth on 11th July 1915, he later received a Commission and posted to the 4th Battalion, Warwickshire Regiment, attached to the 2nd Battalion, when he was Killed in Action, he has no known grave he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium to the missing.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
