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By the tragic death of ‘Gilbert’, there has passed from this district a character made rare by this age of uniformity, a considerable figure in local society, and perhaps the most distinguished soldier that Teesside as ever produced. And as he has left behind him with us here only admirers, but no kith or kin, he can be recorded without reserve, with honesty and with affection.

If you saw him of a night in the country house which he built for himself after the War, and which Fate has allowed him to enjoy so briefly, half dozing in his chair after a long and vigorous day in the open, his dogs at his feet, a big fire of logs before him, you could feel that you were looking at a typical Baron of the days of body armour and a limited suffrage. Before you was the bulky form the very English high complexion and blue eyes; you sense no high-brow, but a man that enjoyed the simple pleasures of the table and the chase, of a high sense of duty and the fullest performance of it, of a high-handed and forcible outlook on all things and of great experience in War. One who neither minced his words nor choice them. A disciplinarian among his own vassals, their outraged protector against other Barons. If you had then rummaged his great chest of oak, you would expect to find armour and weapons, spurs and dog leashes, a grateful letter from the local Abbot, thanking him for his charity to some poor orphans, a recipe for a cunning sauce by the cook of Prester John. By then you had got a pretty good idea of him.

Unique War Record
His record of commanding the same battalion of front line infantry in Flanders from the spring of 1915 to the spring of 1918 is possibly unique. Also in commanding it for twelve successive years. It should be remembered that very few Territorial commanders who escaped casualty were able to stand the strain of that first year in Flanders. Unlike other commanding officers, their daily killed were their friends and neighbours. ‘Old Gilbert’ of luxurious habits pigged it for some years in trenches with his infantry, maintaining the grisly squalor of his sector against the Boche, continually burying his friends and chastising those he loved, joining in such primitive amusements as were possible. His remarkable fleshiness and fondness of luxury were oddly coupled with the maximum of energy and physical activity. At home he had usually risen and was doing jobs of work before most people were awake. His hobby was hard manual work in the open air. He also sketched creditably and was somewhat of an expert in antiques. He was a strange figure of a friar to be preaching self -sacrifice, but he did and what is more performed it. He preached neither in the streets the by-ways, but in clubs and across dinner tables. His gospel was that everyone who had the means and the time should do something for his country. If not in the Territorial Army, then in civic service. He did both himself and imperfectly muffled his grumblings at those who could but would not. The only child of indulgent parents he was a little impatient of opposition, naturally a little choleric, and with one or two deep prejudices. It was inevitable then that while winning hosts of friends he caused a few resentments. He was a very good friend, none could be more generous or hospitable. If any of his friends had struck a bad patch he would do the most kindly and gracious offices with a delicacy of touch almost feminine. I write from experience.

His was such a plainly open and honest nature that he could barely be civil to the other kind. He constantly impressed on his officers the old army adage of ‘your regiment first and yourself afterwards’. When he met anyone in the Army using it during the war solely for their personal aggrandisement he would go for them like an enraged lion. After roundly cursing delinquent junior officers on parade of a morning, on the same evening he would sink his rank and enthusiastically join them in their rustic horse play.

The Colonel’s Peppermints
Who has not some foible? His gargantuan appetite had always amused and astonished his intimate friends. During the war there were those at home who saw to it that he was not wholly without the delicacies that he loved. Their parcels fluttered like the dove of peace into the slime and uproar of the trenches. It is said that in one battle when the line was cracking and the regiment sorely pressed, after a string of anxious messages had been passed along the line about more grenades and the reinforcement of ‘X’ Company and the like, there came the message, ‘Who has got the Colonel’s Peppermint Creams’? The regiment roared and fought on with a better heart. I have heard of his being seen in a burning town during the destruction of the Fifth Army in 1918, in the main street, a vast target on horseback, accepting with calmness that interminable fasting was before him, and that his most likely night’s lodging was a grave. All his decorations were earned regimentally and not on the Staff, and were thus feats, and not mere habit. His devotion to his widowed mother was unsurpassed, and for her sake he never married. Whenever from home, and during all those long years in Flanders, he wrote to her every day, and before she died she saw him laden with honours, wounded but not killed. Loathing idleness, it was a sore blow to him when after the war, his old firm was sold to strangers. He then became a gentleman farmer.

His death was mercifully sudden. Could anyone imagine him in a lonely old age of bed-fastness and water gruel? If he had to go, this was the year and the time. He had just bidden goodbye to soldiering forever and felt it deeply. Only a month or so before there had been a unique parade for the unveiling of the regimental war memorial. There he met his old regiment once more, and saw drawn up upon its flank some hundreds of veterans who had served under him in Flanders. As the troops marched off the Divisional General stood aside to let him take the salute. Though none knew it at the time, this was ‘Farewell’. From first to last the 5th Durham Light Infantry was the passion of his life – its welfare, its efficiency. Always was he its generous benefactor. And now this very human man, this good fellow, this most public-spirited citizen and stout soldier is but a tradition.

Date: 11-Dec-1925

Where to find this: Private collection

Contributed by Durham County Record Office