Name
Reginald Herbert Secretan
22 June 1895
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
31/07/1917
22
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Hertfordshire Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 54 and 56.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, Leverstock Green Village Memorial, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford, Memorial Book, Oundle School, Northants
Pre War
Reginald Herbert Secretan was born in Ewell, Surrey on 22 June 1895, the youngest child of Herbert and Mary Secretan, and baptised at St Mary, Ewell on 10 August 1895. He was known as Reggie and the youngest child of four children.
On the 1901 Census, the family were living at The Old House, Epsom Road, Ewell, Surrey. His father was an underwriter for marine insurance at Lloyd's and they had 3 servants, a cook, housemaid and nurse. His older brother Humphrey was away at boarding school.
Reginald attended Hildersham House School in Broadstairs, Kent and then went on to Oundle School in Northamptonshire in September 1909 where he excelled at games and became captain of his house. He also served in Oundle's Cadet Force. He is listed at Oundle School on the 1911 Census with his parents and siblings living at Holmwood Cottage, Dorking, Surrey.
When his father retired in 1912, the family moved to The Dells, in Tile Kiln Lane, Bennetts End, Hemel Hempstead. (His parents later moved along the lane to the smaller Tile Kiln Cottage in the 1920s and his brother Humphrey lived in The Dells until the 1970s when he moved to South Africa).
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of war he left school and tried to enlist many times but was rejected because he was short sighted. He apparently would travel the country on his motorbike trying to enlist anywhere in any regiment. Eventually he was able to enlist in the 1st London Machine Gun Regiment on 6 November 1914 at Wembley Hill and was passed fit for service with the Royal Regiment of Artillery. He transferred to the Army Service Corps mechanical transport section as a driver and dispatch rider (reg. no. M2/031433) and embarked for France from Southampton on the S S Normania on 30 December 1914.
He returned to England on 19 August 1916 for officer training in Ayrshire and on completion was commissioned on 18 December 1916 as Second Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment, which he joined on the front line at Ypres, Belgium on 3 February 1917.
He was killed in action on 31 July 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), near the village of St Julien, Belgium, notable for the devastating losses sustained by the Hertfordshire Regiment on that day, when, out of 620 men, all the officers and 75 % of the other ranks were killed, wounded or captured.
His commanding officer wrote of him "He was killed instantaneously on July 31st whilst leading his platoon against our final objective."
He has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
Additional Information
Reginald is featured in Charles & Reginald Fair's book Marjorie’s War: Four Families in the Great War 1914-1918. His name is also recorded on the family grave in Leverstock Green. He is mentioned in a very thorough biography for Jack Alfred Willmott by Paul Johnson, which appears in the website’s Archive section at: http://www.hertsatwar.co.uk/archives/hertfordshire-men-women-individuals-stories/jack-alfred-willmott-biography/ His father received a war gratuity of £12 and pay owing of £53 19s 10s. He was also granted probate on 7 December 1917 in London, with effects of £94 13s 4d. His brother Humphrey served with the Royal West Surrey Regiment and awarded the Military Cross for gallant He survived the war, despite being badly wounded.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, google.com/site/leverstockgreenwarmemorial, www.dacorumheritage.org.uk, www.hemelatwar.org, www.hemelheroes.com
