Captain Herbert Deedes

Captain Herbert Philip Deedes, 16th ( Service ) Battalion, Kings Royal Rifle Corps. He was killed in action in France on 16th July 1916, aged 34, during the Battle of the Somme. He was the son of the Rev. Philip and Mrs Josephine Deedes of ” Aldwych “, Russell Avenue, St Albans, Herts. and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France.  Before the War he had been the tenant farmer at Wesat Fenton and had also farmed Whitton Hill farm at Milfield. He was much interested in outdoor sports and played both hockey and cricket. He fell in an attack on High Wood where the Battalion was in support of the 9th Battalion ( Glasgow Highlanders ), Highland Light Infantry. This was the Battalion’s first big action and 11 Military Medals were awarded, with losses of 5 Officers and 77 Other Ranks killed. In April 1917 a Memorial Tablet was placed in Doddington Church where Captain Deedes had been a Church warden. It was dedicated by the Hon. F. Lambton who had already lost his son Geoffrey in 1914. The photographs show troops on the Somme and the colour image shows part of the peaceful Somme landscape today with no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now”.