2nd Lt Fritz Portmore Crawhall, 6th Bn, KRRC

Today, 10th March, marks the 95th anniversary of the opening of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle. The British and Indian armies sustained over 11,000 casualties and gained two kilometres of French mud before the campaign was officially abandoned on the 13th March. Read more about The Battle of Neuve Chapelle HERE.

One thousand, one hundred and thirty British soldiers lost their lives on this, the opening day of the battle. Nineteen year old 2nd Lieutenant Fritz Portmore Crawhall, the son of the Reverend E L Crawhall, Vicar of Herriard, Basingstoke was one of the officer casualties on this day. He lost his life whilst serving with the 6th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps. Like so many, he has no known grave and is commemorated instead on the Le Touret Memorial in France.

Second Lieutenant Crawhall's commission was gazetted in the 21st August issue of the London Gazette. SEE HERE. He also appears in the wordily titled, "Roll of the sons and daughters of the Anglican Church clergy throughout the world and of the naval and military chaplains of the same who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918". He is listed as, "Crawhall, 2d. Lt. Fritz Partmore [sic], K.R.R.C, Rev. Edmund Isaac Laroche Crawhall, Vicar of Ganton."

After the war, Fritz's father - presumably - paid for an entry in De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour which reads as follows:

CRAWHALL, FRITZ PORTMORE
2nd Lieut, 6th King's Royal Rifle Corps; y[ounge]r s[on] of the Rev Edmund Isaac Laroche Crawhall, vicar of Herriard, co[unty] Hants, and later of Granton, co[unty] York, by his wife Isabella Duncan, dau[ghter] of Captain James Grant RN; b[orn] Ryde, Isle of Wight, 15 Aug 1895; educ "Cordwalles", Maidenhead and Winchester College (scholar) and received his commission in the 6th King's Royal Rifle Corps, 15 Aug 1914. After the action at Neuve Chapelle on 10 March 1915 he was officially reported "missing" but his Capt stated that he saw him fall dead in a German trench. He was captain of the College VI at Winchester 1912-13 and 1913-14, and open classical postmaster of Merton College, Oxford.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry (MIC)
Soldiers Died in The Great War
Army Service Numbers
De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission