Second Lieutenant Ferdinand Marsham-Townshend

Campaign:

World War 1


Died:

16.5.1915

2SG
Aged 35
Ferdinand joined the Scots Guards, Special Reserve, as Second Lieutenant on 3 February 1915 and went to France on 18 March. He was killed in action in Rue du Bois, near Festubert on 16 May.

The following account of the fighting on the 16th May 1915, was published in a weekly paper: 
"Another episode which sent my mind back to the early days of the war was the heroic stand of the officers and men of the Scots Guards in the sanguinary fighting in the Rue du Bois. Two officers and eighty men of the Scots Guards fought to the last cartridge, and were found dead in the Rue du Bois, surrounded by heaps of German corpses. This was during the fighting at Festubert. This is what Mr Valentine Williams says of these brave fellows: 'Soaked by the rain, blackened by the sun their bodies were not beautiful to look upon; but the German dead spread plentifully around, the empty cartridge cases scattered about, the twisted bayonets and the broken rifles showed the price a Scots Guard sets upon his honour. No monarch ever had a finer lying in state than those eighty guardsman dead amid the long coarse grass of this dreary Flanders plain.'"
Buried at the Guards cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy, France. IV, K, 20
Son of The Hon. Robert and Mrs. Marsham-Townshend, of 5, Chesterfield St., Mayfair, London

Memorial(s):

Country Location Name of Memorial Campaign Names Date(s)
England Lord's Cricket Ground St John's Wood Road St John's Wood London NW8 8QN MCC Marylebone Cricket Club WW1 World War 1
 Ferdinand Marsham-Townshend 16-5-1915 View
England Eton College In the Cloisters Eton SL6 6DB England Eton College War Memorial World War 1
World War 2
 Ferdinand Marsham-Townshend 16-5-1915 View
England St James's Club (former) 106 Piccadilly Mayfair City Of Westminster Greater London W1 The Bachelors Club World War 1
 Ferdinand Marsham-Townshend 16-5-1915 View

Further information:

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