Name
Alexander Dalzell Sprunt
7 January 1891
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
17/03/1915
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Bedfordshire Regiment
4th Bn., Special Reserve, attd. 2nd Bn South Staffordshire Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LILLERS COMMUNAL CEMETERY
II. D. 2.
France
Headstone Inscription
"O MAN GREATLY BELOVED FEAR NOT PEACE BE UNTO THEE"
UK & Other Memorials
Berkhamsted Town Memorial, St Peter's Church Memorial, Berkhamsted, Sprunt family plaque, St Peter's Church, Berkhamsted, Berkhamsted Collegiate School Memorial, Berkhamsted, New College War Memorial, Oxford
Pre War
Alexander Dalzell Sprunt was born on 7 January 1891 in Hampstead, London, the son of John and Jane Sprunt and one of eight children. He was baptised on 8 March 1891 at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Camden.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Fernhurst, Hampstead where his father's occupation was described as a General Shipping Merchant. They remained in Hampstead in 1901 but had moved to 20 Lyndhurst Gardens.
By 1911 the family had moved to Montgomerie, Doctors Commons Road, Berkhamsted and his father's occupation was then given as General Merchant in City of London. Alexander was listed as an Undergraduate at New College, Oxford - Natural History.
He was educated at Berkhamsted School, leaving in 1910, followed by New College, Oxford where he graduated with honours in July 1914. He was nominated Assistant Professor of natural History at Glasgow University. He was a promising scientist and the second author of an important paper in genetics. [The other authors were J B S Haldane, who survived war service and became famous as a geneticist, and Haldane's sister Naomi, who became famous as the novelist Naomi Mitchison. The paper, which is short, is significant as the first report of genetic linkage in a mammal. It has a note about Sprunt's early death, and promise as a scientist. ]
Wartime Service
Alexander had served for about 10 years in the Officers Training Corps and was offered a commission which he accepted and was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant with the 4th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment on 15 August 1914.
He was ordered to join his Regiment at once at Dovercourt. Later he was detailed to take out a draft of men to the base at Le Havre. He was then attached to the 2nd Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment and remained with them until he was mortally wounded on 10 March 1915 at the Battle of Neuvechapelle. His company was selected to lead the attack but he was shot down about 15 yards from the enemy's lines, where he seems to have laid from morning till night when he was rescued and taken to Lillers. He died from his wounds on 17 March 1915, aged 24, and is buried in Lillers Communal Cemetery, France.
Additional Information
His father received pay owing £41 5s 0d.
Family plaque in St Peter's Church, Berkhamsted gives details of the death of Alexander and his brothers Edward and Gerald, and a quote from a letter from the Assistant Military Secretary to King George V which reads "I am to express to you the King's high appreciation of these services and to add that his majesty trusts their public acknowledgement may be of some consolation in your bereavement" "Your three gallant sons - they died that we might live."
The HAWP has a copy of the paper on genetics mentioned above.
N.B. Du Ruvgny states that he went to France in August 1914, however medal index cards suggest he did not arrive in France until 1915.
Mr J D Sprunt, Montgomerie, Berkhamsted, ordered his headstone inscription: ""O MAN GREATLY BELOVED FEAR NOT PEACE BE UNTO THEE".
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, Mike Buttolph
