Person

Percy Hugh Beverley Lyon was born in Darjeeling, India, in 1893, where his father was in the Indian Civil Service. He remained in India until the age of 9 years old when he was sent to boarding school in England. Lyon was two years into his studies at Oriel College, Oxford, when the First World War broke out. He enlisted quickly and was commissioned into 6th Battalion (Territorial Force), Durham Light Infantry (6 DLI), on 15 October 1914.

6 DLI were training at Ravensworth, Gateshead, when Lyon was commissioned but moved into billets at Bensham shortly after. They remained here in intensive training until April 1915. At this time, all the territorial battalions left for France, moving straight on to Belgium and into the Second Battle of Ypres. Lyon was in command of a platoon of men in D Company.

In March 1915, the British government had banned the use of cameras by all ranks serving in the British Army. Lyon either did not receive the War Office instruction, or he chose to ignore it, taking his camera to the Western Front and capturing many candid images of the war. He wrote a memoir, Three Months of War: April to July 1915, which is illustrated with these photographs, from training in Newcastle, to the men in the trenches and dugouts of Belgium.

26-27 April 1915
‘But later the shrapnel smoke became a subject of photography, (though I was too busy actually to get a specimen picture, being interrupted by a fresh order the only time I had my camera ready for use).’

15 May 1915
‘On the way back I seized the occasion to take a few photographs of Ypres. I was fortunate in being able to be present at the blowing up of a house for the purpose of a gun-emplacement, and I secured a photograph of the explosion.’

In mid-May 1915, PHB Lyon was sent on a bombing course at Vlamertinghe and went on to instruct others as Brigade Bomb Officer. This entailed giving up command of his platoon, and on 13 June 1915 he was taken onto the Brigade Staff. Lyon remained Brigade Bomb Officer until he was appointed as an adjutant to 6 DLI on 16 August, the same year.

In 1917, Lyon was invalided back to England due to a knee injury, and spent time with both 6th (Reserve) Battalion, and an Officer Cadet Battalion. He returned to the western front and 6 DLI towards the end of the year having been promoted to Captain, and put in command of a company.

On 27 May 1918, PHB Lyon, along with many other men and officers, was taken as a prisoner of war. He kept a further diary of his time as a prisoner, beginning with the events of the capture:
‘By now I saw Germans all round the hill, and looking up I saw half a dozen of them 10 yards away, shouting and raising their rifles. The wounded men were shouting at me to surrender, & indeed I saw nothing else for it – so I just stood up, & in a minute we were prisoners… The shame of that moment has proved ineffaceable. I suppose that every man taken in battle must feel that smart of indignation and remorse, for every such man has deliberately chosen life before freedom… For myself, I only know that it seemed inevitable, & that in similar circumstances I should almost certainly do the same again. It may be a taint of cowardice, or merely an unheroic common sense.’

Lyon was moved around several camps before reaching his final destination of Graudenz [now Grudziadz, Poland], on 17 June 1918. As it was a new camp, housing around 540 officers, a lot of organisation was still in progress.

Much of the diary concerns food and what Lyon did to keep himself ‘mentally distracted’ from both hunger and boredom. These endeavours included writing poetry and learning German. The officers decided to begin a lecture series, with men giving talks on whatever they were knowledgeable about. They were allowed to write four postcards and two letters home a month. When some emergency parcels arrived from the Ruhlebehn internment camp containing bully beef, there was much excitement: ‘Oh Bully, in our hours of ease, too brackish dry and hard to please. When pangs of hunger rack the tum, Ambrosia thou art become!’

On 23 July, a significant number of emergency parcels arrived, one was issued to all officers who had not received a parcel in the last week, and all but one man in Lyon’s room got one. Seven of the men in the room, including Lyon, decided to run a mess together for the food parcels, Red Cross and private, in order to share and make the most of what they received. Lyon was also a member of the parcel staff that distributed the parcels.

Early August saw a rush of parcels arriving at the camp. Lyon received several from the Irish Women’s Association (IWA), arranged by his family. It later transpired that his mother was working with the IWA when news of his capture arrived on 8 July, over a month after the event.

On 19 August, Lyon received his first letter, and the next day received his first from his parents, a three page one from his mother, and it was the first of many letters he received over the next week, ‘It is great to be in touch with the outside world once more.’

At the beginning of October, promising news about the war’s progression began to filter into the camp, and a sense of things changing can be detected in the diary. ‘I started Plato’s Republic yesterday, and have enough philosophy here to last all winter. But I have learnt more than is in books these last four months. It is very instructive seeing what men can become in physical hardships, and which characters best stand the strain…the news outside is better every day.’ [12 October 1918]

At the end of the month, Lyon wrote ” ‘Grippe’ of a more or less advanced form seems to have established itself pretty thoroughly in the camp…In our room we have determined to fight it, though we all feel pretty brittle. By fresh air and exercise and a determined optimism we have kept the worst of it off.’ ‘The grippe’ referred to is the influenza pandemic that was spreading around the world.

In the days prior to the Armistice, PHB Lyon noted how news and rumours about Germany and the war were constantly coming in. On the morning of 11 November, many of the rumours were proven to be just that, but the camp sentries did take down their eagle coats of arms, and much bartering took place amongst the officers to keep them as souvenirs. ‘The Armistice appears to have been at last signed, and all we know really about it is that it provides for the immediate return of allied prisoners. The feeling here is absolutely indescribable. It is like a dream come true.’

As the officers awaited repatriation, the prisoners’ freedom increased to the point they were allowed out alone, ‘No word can describe the joy of being alone and at liberty out in the country.’

On the evening of Friday 13 December 1918, Lyon and others began their journey home, leaving Graudenz for the sixty mile rail journey to Danzig [Gdasnk, Poland]. They boarded the Danish hospital ship, Mitau, on 14 December, arriving into dock at Leith on 18 December. Here they were given lunch and put onto trains to Ripon, arriving at 10pm. The diary ends here, as did many soldiers’ and officers’ military journeys, as Ripon was a dispersal camp.

In early 1918, around the time he was taken as a prisoner of war, PHB Lyon had a collection of poetry published called ‘Songs of Youth and War’. On leaving the army, he resumed his university studies at Oxford. After graduating, he married Elinor ‘Nan’ Richardson in August 1920 and their first child followed in 1921.

Following employment at schools in Cheltenham and Edinburgh, in 1931 Lyon returned to his old school and became headmaster at Rugby, where he remained for 17 years. He spent the next 13 years working for the Directorship of the Public Schools Appointments Bureau before retiring in 1961.

Nan died in 1970, but Lyon found happiness again in his later years, marrying Elizabeth Beater in 1973. He died in January 1986, aged 92.

Sources
Three Months of War, April to July 1915, PHB Lyon, Durham County Record Office ref. D/DLI 7/424/2
A Diary, Seven Months of Captivity, PHB Lyon, Durham County Record Office ref. D/DLI 7/424/3
Hugh Lyon 1893-1986 a Memoir, Elinor Wright and Barbara Lyon, privately published October 1993
Unpublished research by Malcolm McGregor
The Faithful Sixth, a History of the Sixth Battalion The Durham Light Infantry, Harry Moses, 1995

http://ww1countydurham.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-second-battle-of-ypres-6th.html

Birth date: 14-Oct-1893

Death date: 18-Jan-1986

Armed force/civilian: Army

Education: c.1903 – Bilton Grange, near Rugby
1907 – Rugby School
1912 – Oriel college, Oxford, studies continued after the war

Employment: 1921 – Housemaster, Cheltenham School
1926 – Rector, Edinburgh Academy
1931 – Headmaster, Rugby School
1948 – Public Schools Appointments Bureau
1961 – Retired

Family: Father: Percy comyn Lyon
Mother: Adeline Beverley
Wife: Elinor ‘Nan’ Richardson, married 1920 (died 1970)
Children: Elinor b.1921, Barbara b.1924, Christopher b.1929, Jill b.1934
Wife: Elizabeth Beater, married 1973

Military service:

15-Oct-1914 Second Lieutenant, 6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry
1-Jun-1916 Lieutenant
12-Nov-1917 Captain
Also served as Brigade Bomb Officer
Prisoner of war 27 May 1918 to 13 December 1918

Medal(s): 15 Star
British War Medal
Victory Medal
Military Cross, 18 January 1918, citation (25 April 1918): ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led a carrying party and brought in wounded under heavy shell fire. Later, when in command of a company holding a line of shell-holes, he succeeded in advancing his post on three successive nights under heavy fire, himself reconnoitring the ground before each advance.’

Gender: Male

Contributed by Durham County Record Office