Lieutenant Martin Hunter

Lieutenant Martin Hunter 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers. He died in France in the British Red Cross Hospital on 11th April 1918 from wounds received in action during the German Spring Offensive on the River Lys, aged 20 . He was born in 1898 at Anton’s Hill, Leitholm and was the only son of Lt. Col. James Hunter  and Jessie Hunter of Anton’s Hill, Leitholm and is buried at Wimereux Communal Cemetery. His original grave cross was brought over from France and can be seen in the private cemetery at Anton’s Hill, Leitholm,Coldstream. His father was Lt. Col. James Hunter J.P., D.L. late of the 9th Lancers who owned both Anton’s Hill and Medomsley in Co. Durham. Lt. Hunter had been educated at Prep school in Co. Durham, Eton and then Sandhurst before being commissioned in January 1915 and being sent on active service in 1916. This year (2014) one of the Tower Of London ceramic poppies was purchased and placed beside the grave cross in Remembrance. His parents on being notified of his wounds managed to get to his side in the British Red Cross Hospital and were with him when he passed away. At the time of his death his sister Jean was nursing limbless soldiers at Edenhall and his other sister Hyacinthe was working as a driver in London. On his gravestone in France his mother had inscribed the poet Rupert Brooke’s lines ” Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace “. The photographs show Allied troops in rather makeshift defences preparing to resist the on coming Germans.

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