Alastair Graham Menzies (or Graham-Menzies) (A. Graham Menzies in Oxford University Roll of Service)

• Matriculated: 1910

• Born: 11 May 1892

• Died: 1 January 1915

• Regiment: Scots Guards

• Grave/Memorial: Le Touret Memorial: Panels 3 and 4

Family background

b. 11 May 1892 in Roxburghe Hotel, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, as the elder son of William Dudgeon Graham Menzies (1857–1944) and Cecilia Clementina Graham Menzies (née Wombwell) (1865–1948) (m. 1890), of Hallyburton Castle, Coupar-Angus, Perth and Kinross, and 6, Hereford Gardens, Westminster, London. At the time of the 1891 Census, the family home in Scotland employed 13 domestic servants, including two footmen, a butler and a piper.

Parents and antecedents

Graham Menzies was the scion of a Lancashire family that can be traced back to King Stephen and a descendant of George Child Villiers (1773–1859), Viscount Villiers and the 5th Earl of Jersey from 1805, who was a courtier and a Conservative politician. Graham Menzies’ maternal grandfather, Sir George Wombwell, DL, JP, 4th Baronet (1832–1913), took part in the Charge of the Light Brigade as a Lieutenant in the 17th Lancers, and his cousin, Major-General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (1890–1968), was Chief of MI6 from 1939 to 1952 and the original “M”.

Siblings and their families

Alastair’s brother was Victor Malcolm (1893–1986) (Wombwell from the time of his first marriage); married (February 1920) Sybil Rose Neumann (c.1897–1977); marriage annulled in 1921. He later (1942) married Eileen Beryl Tilley (1908–77).

By summer 1918, Victor Malcolm had incurred debts of £20,000. He left the Scots Guards in June 1919 after serving with them for the entire war, and in September 1920 he was declared bankrupt due to losses on horse-racing, bad debts, an insufficient allowance from his father, and “a liability of £1,650 on bills given to a moneylender by his late brother”.

But by this time he was en route to India as a private soldier after his financial situation had contributed to the failure of his marriage to the daughter of the South African merchant, financier and race-horse owner Sir Sigismund Neumann, Bt (1857–1916), which was duly annulled in April 1921.

On his return from India, Victor Malcolm lived at Newborough Priory, Coxwold, York, and became an amateur landscape painter. His second wife was the daughter of Sir George Tilley (1866–1948), the President and Chairman of Pearl Assurance.

In 1923, Sybil Rose married Robert Villiers Grimston (1897–1979). Educated at Repton School, he had held a commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery from 1916 to 1919 and fought on the Salonika front and in Palestine. He was Conservative MP for Westbury, Wiltshire, from 1931 to 1965, during which time he held office as a Junior Lord of the Treasury and Assistant Whip (1937), Vice-Chamberlain of the Household (1938–39), Treasurer of the Household (1939–42), Assistant Postmaster-General (1942–45) and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Supply (1945). He was made a Baronet in 1952 and the 1st Baron Grimston of Westbury in 1964.

 

“Provost Chalmers paid high tribute to the good works of Mr and Mrs Graham Menzies, and said that Mr Alastair was born and brought up in their midst, his life was an open book which had been well read and was known to them all. They could remember his bright, cheerful disposition as a boy, and as he grew older they saw him develop ability and of a very high order, his uniform kindness and courteous manner drawing all men to him.”

Education

From c.1898 to 1904 Graham Menzies attended Wellington House Preparatory School, Westgate-on-Sea, Thanet, Kent (1886–1970), where he was tutored by the Revd Herbert Bull (1854–1928), a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge (cf. H.R. Inigo-Jones, W.G. Houldsworth). Bull, who predicted a distinguished future for Graham Menzies, had co-founded Wellington House School in 1886, two years after he was ordained deacon, and two years before he was ordained priest and instituted as the Curate of St Saviour’s Church, Westgate-on-Sea. From 1906 to 1910, Graham Menzies attended Wellington College, Berkshire, where Bull had been an assistant master from 1880 to 1886 and which had a special relationship with Wellington House, and here he captained his House Cricket XI and was elected a College Prefect. By this time, too, he had developed a predilection for the three classic field sports. On 18 October 1910 he matriculated as a Commoner at Magdalen, having passed Responsions in Hilary Term 1910. He failed one of the papers for the First Public Examination – Greek and Latin Literature – in the Hilary and Trinity Terms of 1911, but finally passed it, together with the paper on Holy Scripture, early in the Michaelmas Term of 1911. He then began to read for a Pass Degree, but after failing Group A (Classics) in Michaelmas Term 1912 and two of the Group D papers (Elements of Religious Knowledge) in Trinity Term 1913, he left without taking a degree.

In August 1913, Graham Menzies’ coming-of-age was celebrated over a period of four days, and his obituary in the Blairgowrie Advertiser contains a telling description of the central event which reads as follows:

The affection and esteem of all classes was manifested to the young laird by the magnificent gifts he received and the felicitous speeches which accompanied them. From the tenantry of the estate Mr Alastair received a valuable pair of sporting guns, which were conveyed to the young laird by Mr T. A. Butler, who said […] he did not flatter Mr Alastair when he said that he was a great favourite with everyone, and that they were all proud of him. Although fate had called him to a high situation in this life, he was endowed with a great sense of modesty and tender regard, and had never been known to utter a word which would hurt the feelings of the humblest on the estate – a remark that was received with loud cheers by the large company. Mr Butler considered Mr Alastair to be a true example of a perfect gentleman. The presentation from the house servants and the estate employees took the form of a handsome set of fishing rods for river and loch, a salmon gaff, and an illuminated address. […] A magnificent loving cup, of solid silver, 18 inches high, was the souvenir presented by the Town Council and inhabitants of Coupar Angus to mark the interesting occasion. In offering it for Mr Alastair’s acceptance, Provost Chalmers paid high tribute to the good works of Mr and Mrs Graham Menzies, and said that Mr Alastair was born and brought up in their midst, his life was an open book which had been well read and was known to them all. They could remember his bright, cheerful disposition as a boy, and as he grew older they saw him develop ability and of a very high order, his uniform kindness and courteous manner drawing all men to him.

Military and war service

Graham Menzies joined the Oxford University Officers’ Training Corps (OUOTC) during his first term at Magdalen, where, according to the obituary in the Blairgowrie Advertiser, he “marched side by side with the Prince of Wales”. Then, after leaving Oxford, he became a Second Lieutenant on probation in the 1st Battalion, the Scots Guards (cf. H.R. Inigo-Jones, W.G. Houldsworth and G.A. Loyd), on 20 August 1913: he was confirmed in this rank on 5 August 1914. Before becoming a regular soldier, Graham Menzies would have known Inigo-Jones and Houldsworth from the OUOTC, and his story parallels theirs up to 14 September 1914, when their Battalion was in action at Vendresse. It then spent nearly a month in the trenches near Oeuilly and Moussy and on the Troyon Ridge, in the area of Cerny-en-Laonnois and Soupir, before leaving the Aisne on 16 October and moving north-westwards to the Ypres Salient by train on the following day. On 18 October, the Battalion detrained at Hazebrouck, marched north-east for three days, and saw action in the Bikschoote area, north of Ypres, from 21 to 24 October. On 25 October it marched to Zillebeke, south-east of Ypres, and on the following day it reinforced the firing line on the left of the 7th Division near Gheluvelt, east of Ypres. When the big German attack began on 29 October, the Battalion was in the trenches facing north, and it stayed in that sector, first between Gheluvelt and Veldhoek and then in reserve at Hooge, until 16 November 1914. By this time the First Battle of Ypres was nearly over and the Battalion had lost 686 men and 21 officers killed, wounded and missing. But Graham Menzies survived, was promoted temporary Lieutenant on 16 November pending the arrival of reinforcements on the following day, and was then given two weeks’ leave at his home in Scotland, returning to the Battalion in early December 1914.

The reconstituted Battalion remained at Borre, just east of Hazebrouck, until 20 December, when it marched via Merville to Béthune. On the next day, it crossed the Canal d’Aire at the village of Cuinchy in order to recapture trenches and then attacked in the direction of Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée, where it stayed in the front line for a week, before returning to Béthune on 28 December. Graham Menzies’ Commanding Officer, Major (later Major-General) The Master of Ruthven (Walter Patrick Hore-Ruthven, 1870–1956), thought highly of his subordinate’s coolness, calmness, and general unflappability, and in his letter of condolence to Graham Menzies’ mother of 6 January 1915 he expressed the view that her son had done “an excellent piece of scouting work for me” during the attack of 21 December and brought him “a valuable piece of information which he had obtained under considerable risk”. On 31 December the Battalion was detailed to reinforce the 2nd Infantry Brigade, 1st Division, back at Cuinchy (see R.A. Perssé), as the 1st Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment was by now well below strength. So at 03.00 hours on 1 January 1915, the Battalion found itself at Cuinchy Church (St Pierre), under orders to attack north-eastwards, as part of an assault by the entire 2nd Infantry Brigade, across 400 yards of open ground, and re-take “at all costs” the trenches which were on top of a six-foot high railway embankment just south of the Canal d’Aire and which had been lost during the previous afternoon.

 

The advance began at 03.00 hours, with Graham Menzies leading ‘C’ Company as calmly “as though he had been on parade in London”. The attackers reached the foot of the embankment, paused for a few minutes, and then scrambled to the top even though they were under heavy fire. They were either shot or hit by shrapnel as they reached the top, and although the 1st Battalion accomplished its task very quickly, it was unable to hold the trenches for more than an hour as it was enfiladed by machine-guns on the right and to the right rear, forcing a withdrawal during which they suffered very heavy casualties. According to a card that was written on the same day by Private T.A. Walsh Crozier, the son of the postmaster of Coupar-Angus, who fought in the London Scottish and survived the war, the attacking British troops took and lost the trench three times that day before gaining a foothold. Half the ORs and four out of the six officers from the 1st Battalion who were involved in the attack were killed in action, including Graham Menzies, aged 22, who was either shot or hit by shrapnel as he reached the top of the embankment. Captain Reginald George Stracey (1881–1915) died at the same place and time, but whereas his body was recovered and later buried in Bailleul Road East Cemetery, St-Laurent-Blangy (just east of Arras) (Grave IV.F.3), Graham Menzies’ body could not be recovered and, like R.A. Perssé, he has no known grave. W.V. Quarterman would be killed in action nearby on 17 September 1918.

A memorial service for Graham Menzies was held in Kettins Parish Church on 9 January 1915, a report on which, mainly consisting of the names of those who were present, appeared five days later in The Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Journal. The clergyman who delivered the memorial address remarked that the size of the congregation “testified in a striking manner to the respect and esteem in which the deceased officer was held in the parish” and described him as “generous and considerate to others, affable and kind, a true gentleman in every sense”. But the newspaper then, rather confusingly, reported the speaker as saying:

When home on a short leave from the front in November he said to his mother: “Out there, mother, men do find God, and only God can help you.” Did those present that day realise that he had died for them? His parents, broken-hearted and yet proudly thankful, said to them all: “We have given our first-born, our darling, for you”; and thus the castle and the cottage were at one, for from the cottage and the castle together throughout our land such sacrifices of their best and dearest were being made to-day.

The congregation left the church at the end of the service to the strains of Handel’s ‘Dead March’ in Saul, and the family’s piper marched into the churchyard playing ‘The Flowers of the Forest’ – one of the pieces of music that now features on every Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph in London.

Graham Menzies is commemorated on Panels 3 and 4 of Le Touret Memorial (Le Touret Military Cemetery) and also on the War Memorial, Public School Garden, Kettins, Blairgowrie, Perthshire, which was unveiled in August 1920 in memory of the 23 parishioners of Kettins who were killed in action. A long and very moving account of the unveiling ceremony, in which Graham Menzies’ parents played an important role, was published in the local newspaper, and it is reproduced in part here:

The relatives of the fallen soldiers were conducted to seats immediately in front of the memorial, while the other spectators stood in the bright sunlight of the village green to pay their respectful homage to the memory of the glorious dead. The proceedings were of a simple and deeply impressive nature. The memorial takes the form of a rest garden constructed in the school garden rockery, from designs by Sir Robert Lorimer [1864–1929], architect, Edinburgh, extended and amplified by Mr L. K. Reid, Elmslie, Coupar Angus. The central feature consists of a monument of red granite, resting on a base of hammered dressed rubble work, and built on a level terrace, bounded by a circular parapet wall. The monument bears a polished panel with the names of the fallen inscribed. Pockets for rock plants provided in the base of the monument and in the retaining wall. Encircling the central terrace is another lower level, with suitable seating accommodation, and surrounding this second terrace there is built a circular retaining wall to support the side rockeries, with their backgrounds of shrubs. On either side of the entrance gateway are two substantial stone pillars of hammered dressed masonry, with flat coping, surmounted by rough-hewn stone balls. In the background, forming an entrance to the school garden proper, a stone archway of artistic design completes a scheme of architecture appropriate in its simplicity and imposing in its general effect. Behind the archway leading into the garden is a pergola, over which will be trained rambler roses. With the exception of the red granite monument, all the masonry for the memorial came from Leys Quarry, on the Halliburton estate. The mason work was done by Messrs D. Reid & Son, Coupar Angus; the iron work by Messrs J. S. Fraser & Son, Rattray; and the sculptural work by Sir James Taggart, Aberdeen.

The proceedings opened with the singing of the hymn, ‘Our God, our help in ages past’, followed by Prayer by Rev[d] C. M. Kerr, minister of Kettins. While the gentlemen of the company stood with bared heads, Rev. Mr Kerr read the 23 names of the men whose lives were sacrificed for their country’s sake. Mr W.D. Graham Menzies of Hallyburton then said that as Convenor of the Kettins War Memorial Committee he had been asked to express, on behalf of the subscribers to the memorial, their great appreciation of the kindness of Revd Dr Fleming in coming to join with them in paying homage to their fallen heroes. Very few words of his were required to introduce Dr Fleming to a Kettins audience. Dr Fleming bore a name greatly honoured in that district by reason of his uncle’s long ministry at Kettins and his cherished memory. Dr Fleming’s own merits and distinctions were known to them all. As a sort of guardian of London Scotsmen, his work in St. Columba’s Church during the war on behalf of soldiers of Scottish regiments was truly remarkable. No other choice than Dr Fleming could have been more appropriate for them that day, meeting as they did to show their love and gratitude for those who gave their lives for King and country.

Revd Dr Fleming, dedicating the memorial, said: “It is in response to an invitation I greatly value that I am here in this dear parish of Kettins again today. I know that I have been asked to come because, as Mr Graham Menzies has said, most of the names which are graven on your memorial were graven – perhaps from their infancy – on the heart of my dear uncle, who was for nearly half-a-century minister of this parish. I remember how dear this school garden, at whose portal you have placed this beautiful memorial, was to him. I have stood in it with him, and I have heard him speak, with that boyish enthusiasm which was his to the last, of its beauties and possibilities. And I am sure that his spirit is with us now. Standing here I recall a text in the Gospel of St. John. You will find it in the 41st verse of the 19th chapter, and it says: ‘Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus.’ I think it is a very suitable text for us today. There are some here – your parish minister is one of them – who have served in the war, and they will perhaps say that these shell-holed, devastated battlefields where so many of the young heroes of Kettins fell were anything but a garden. They were a Golgotha, the place of a skull, of desolation, of hideousness, of devilry. That is true; yet it is also true that wherever the noblest virtues spring they make a garden – whether it be in a desert or a dungeon, on a cross or a parapet, or in no-man’s-land. Wherever the flower of sacrifice grows there it is a garden. And we too, in the place where we keep their memories, there also it is a garden. ‘There’s pansies – that’s for thoughts’ said Ophelia. And we have listened today to the reading of these three-and-twenty names, and at the mention of each there has sprung in some hearts here, as if by magic, a very rosary of remembrance – a garden of beautiful, not sad, things. It is a weeded garden the garden of our memory today. No things that are rank or gross in nature possess it. The delicate crop of remembrance is of the fair graces of their lives – perhaps of their sweet graciousness as little children, whether born to promise of great possessions or to the heritage of honest and honourable toil; or of their innocent, joyous, and promising boyhood or young manhood; or of their maturity, when we saw their gravity and sense of responsibility and capacity for generous love grow ripe; or of the fierce crimson flush of their offering for the war – a garden of proud peonies, as they marched away to death and glory; or the memory of the tender, wistful little notes they sent us from the field, until the last of all their letters reached us – a posy of violets or a bunch of everlastings that we shall cherish always. Whatever they be, these varied flowers of remembrance form our garden today, with all its variety and tenderness and beauty, our garden of memory growing in a quick, rich crop on the very place where they were crucified, the place where they fell. In such a place – hidden in the virgin recesses of our hearts – we make here today our new sepulchre for them, and there we lay them. And thus their sacrifice takes us back to that great sacrifice on which theirs was modelled – to the ‘Green hill far away, without the city wall, where the dear Lord was crucified, Who died to save us all’. And we remember with a very proud and joyous thankfulness that what they did linked them, not only with the long roll of those who, laying down their lives, laid the foundations of our country’s greatness, but with the Divine Lord Himself, Who taught us that there is nothing in Heaven or on earth more noble or more splendid than the laying down of a life for a friend – the giving of everything, all for love. It is fitting that this memorial should be unveiled by one who, known to and beloved by you all, herself gave her first-born for God and King and country; and so I ask Mrs Graham Menzies to perform for us this gracious service now.”

The Union jack was then withdrawn from the monument by Mrs Graham Menzies, revealing the parishioners’ beautiful stone of remembrance for their honoured dead. While the veteran family piper at Halliburton, Mr Donald M’Donald, played a lament on the bagpipes, tears were brought to many eyes as Mrs Graham Menzies and the relatives of the deceased soldiers placed wreaths and evergreens at the base of the monument and on the circular parapet surrounding it. ‘The Last Post’ having been sounded on the bugle by Mr James Slidders, Coupar Angus, the Paraphrase ‘O, God of Bethel’, was sung by the company. A touching and unforgettable service terminated with the Benediction pronounced by Revd C. M. Kerr and the singing of the National Anthem. A special note of praise is due to Mr L. K. Reid for his invaluable help in formulating the memorial scheme, as well as in carrying it to a successful completion; and to Mr W. Andrew, Schoolhouse, for his untiring services as secretary of the Memorial Committee. His arrangements for the unveiling ceremony were a model of perfection.

Bibliography

For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.

Printed sources:

[Anon.], ‘Heir to Hallyburton Killed in Action’, Blairgowrie Advertiser, no. 3,108 (9 January 1915), p. 3.

[Anon.], ‘In Memoriam: Late Lieutenant A. Graham Menzies’, The Perthshire Advertiser and Strathmore Journal, no. 10,918 (13 January 1915), p. 6.

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 33, no. 9 (22 January 1915), p. 145.

[Anon.], ‘Captain V.M. Wombwell and Miss Sybil Neumann’, The Times, no. 42,337 (18 February 1920), p. 19.

[Anon.], ‘War Memorial Unveiled at Kettins’, Blairgowrie Adveriser, no. 3,398 (7 August 1920), p. 20 [a very moving account of the unveiling of the memorial].

[Anon.], ‘Ex-Guards Officer as Private’, The Times, no. 42,521 (21 September 1920), p. 7.

[Anon.], ‘(Before the Lord Chancellor)’, The Times, no. 42,704 (26 April 1921), p. 4.

[Anon.], ‘A Young Man’s Betting Losses’, The Times, no. 43,171 (25 October 1922), p. 5.

Petre, Ewart and Lowther (1925), pp. 4, 32–70.

Leinster-Mackay (1984), pp. 4, 175, 193, 330.

Ronald Blackwood Weir, The History of the Distillers Company, 1877–1939: Diversification and Growth in Whisky and Chemicals (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 19–21, 32–8, 92.

Clutterbuck, ii (2002), pp. 323–4.

Archival sources:

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 1.

WO95/1219.

WO95/1263.

WO95/1267.

WO339/9159.

On-line sources:

‘Cuinchy, Cambrin & Vermelles: World War One Battlefields’, article on-line in a series that deals with World War One Battlefields (includes a very useful trench map of Cuinchy from 1916): http://www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/others/cuinchy.html (accessed 5 September 2017).