Name
Eric Cecil Guinness (DSO)
30 August 1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
11/09/1920
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Captain
Royal Irish Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Distinguished Service Order
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HOLLYBROOK MEMORIAL, SOUTHAMPTON
Panel 102A (Addenda)
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Baldock memorials, Memorial Chapel, Rugby School, Rugby, Warwickshire
Pre War
Eric Cecil Guinness was born on 30 August 1894 in Kobe, Japan, the only son of Cecil and Madeline Guinness, of Baldock, Herts and was baptised on 29 September 1894 at St Michael's Church, Kobe. He had an older sister Barbara, born the previous year.
He was educated at Rugby School, Warwickshire from 1908 and recorded there as a pupil on the 1911 Census. He left later the same year and was gazetted to the Reserve Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment in 1912.
He married Hannah Mary Pryor, daughter of Marlborough Robert Pryor of Weston Park, Hertfordshire, on 16 October 1916 and they had two children, Lynette born 1917 and Patrick born 1919.
Wartime Service
Eric was a serving soldier at the outbreak of war and went to France with the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment in August 1914, being wounded in the head at Mons. He was wounded again at the Battle of the Marne and in January 1915 when he was wounded a third time in May, and buried by the explosion of a shell, he was repatriated to England. Once recovered, Eric was sent to France again in January 1916 with the rank of temporary Major, attached to the 27th Siege Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He was wounded for the fourth time on 1 July 1916 (Battle of the Somme) when he was again buried and was paralysed in both legs and returned to England. Fortunately the paralysis was temporary and he returned to France in October 1917.
He was Mentioned in Despatches in November 1917 and awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) in January 1918. Unfortunately the paralysis returned and Eric was declared unfit for service but after a period of rehabilitation when he was an instructor at Sandhurst, he sailed for India in 1920 to take up a position as Adjutant of his own Battalion in the Royal Irish Regiment. Sadly the paralysis returned after a fall down a steep cliff, and following several months in hospital he was invalided home in August 1920. Whilst travelling from Bombay, he died on board HM Hospital Ship, Assaye, on 11 September 1920, aged 26, from an embolism of the lungs, septicaemia and cellulitis, as a consequence of wounds received in action. He was buried at sea and his name is commemorated on the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton, Hampshire.
Additional Information
His widow received payments totalling £51 14s 2d. She was living at 3 The Avenue, Hitchin, with her two children, and servants in 1921.
His only son Patrick Joined the Royal Navy as a Sub-Lieutenant in WW2 and was killed in action on 13 February 1941 on board Motor Torpedo Boat 41 when it hit a mine and was sunk in the North Sea. He is commemorated on the Portsmouth Naval Memorial.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Adrian Pitts, Paul Johnson, www.wikitree.com
