Gerald Wildman Cattley

• Matriculated: 1908

• Born: 18 February 1889

• Died: 1 August 1918

• Regiment: Nigerian Land Contingent

• Grave/Memorial: Not identified

Family background

b. 18 February 1889 as the younger son of Arthur Cyril Cattley (1862–95) and Margaret Elizabeth (“Eliza”) Cattley (née Richardson) (1864–1908) (m. 1887). She later became Sewell after her remarriage in 1898, to Ernest Brooke Sewell (1865–1946) of Moorfield, Holmwood, Surrey; one son, one daughter. At the time of the 1891 Census the Cattley family was living at Meadow Bank, Dorking, Surrey (seven servants); at the time of the 1901 Census – i.e. after her remarriage – Margaret was still at this address with her husband (five servants).

 

Parents and antecedents

Cattley’s father was a hop merchant and a first-class cricketer who played for Surrey and was a bowler as well as a batsman. His paternal grandfather, Wildman Cattley (1837–1918), was a breeder of prize cattle and Master of the Grocers’ Company, but also a keen amateur cricketer who became the Honorary Treasurer of Surrey County Cricket Club.

Cattley’s mother was the daughter of an East India Merchant. She was also a keen cricketer, who played for the White Heather (Kent) ladies’ cricket team in 1896.

Cattley’s step-father was a broker at Lloyds.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Cyril Francis Cattley, MC (1888–1917); killed in action on 20 November 1917 at Gonnecourt, south of Cambrai, while serving as a Major in the 6^th Battalion, the East Kent Regiment (The Buffs).

Half-brother of:

(1) Francis Brooke Sewell (1898–1918); killed in action on 19 May 1918, aged 19, while serving as a Second Lieutenant in the 126^th Heavy Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. Buried: Hédauville Communal Cemetery Extension, Grave D.4;

(2) Irene Agnes Brooke Sewell (1900–70).

Francis Brooke Sewell attended Charterhouse School from May to July 1915 and Reigate Grammar School from September 1915 to May 1916. He applied for a Commission on 28 June 1916 and from June to 4 September 1916 he attended an officers’ training course at the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst), on which he came 146^th. He was registered for a Commission on 26 September 1917, served as an Instructor at No. 4 Officer Cadet School in Oxford, and embarked for France on 6 May 1918. He joined his unit on 11 May and was killed in action four days later.

 

Irene Agnes never married; she got her private pilot’s licence at the Henderson Flying School, Croydon, in 1930 and became a well-known airwoman in the 1930s. In February–March 1932 she flew solo from England to Transjordan in a DH 60 Moth biplane in order to visit friends, a journey of 3,500 miles which she undertook in poor weather conditions.

 

Education and professional life

From c.1896 to 1903 Cattley attended Mr Arnold’s Preparatory School, Wokingham, Berkshire (see also J.H. Hudson, C.F. Cattley).  This was founded in 1869 as Wixenford School when the Revd Richard Cowley Powles (1819–1901; Headmaster 1869–79) leased Wixenford House; in 1888 Ernest Penrose Arnold (b. c.1848 in Berlin, d. 1917), Powles’s successor from 1879 to 1903 and a nephew of Dr Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) of Rugby, moved the school into Wokingham, where it became known as Mr Arnold’s Preparatory School; it has been defunct since 1934. Cattley then attended Eton College from 1903 to 1908, and matriculated at Magdalen as a Commoner on 14 October 1908, having passed Responsions in Michaelmas Term 1907. Immediately after matriculating, on 23 October 1908, he was awarded the Diploma in Forestry alongside 13 other Magdalen men, four of whom would be killed in action (G.H. Morrison, M.M. Cudmore, G.B. Gilroy, and T.Z.D. Babington). His Tutors were less than enthusiastic about him, with Godley thinking “poorly of him”, but conceding that he was “interested” and “not worse than others”, “quite regular”, “better than I thought”, “not bad”, capable of doing “quite well”, and even “Chance of a 2^nd”. He took the First Public Examinations in the Hilary Terms of 1909 and 1910, when he was awarded a 3^rd in Classical Moderations.

 

In summer 1909 it was noted that he “played a lot of cricket” – which was because he was a member of the College’s First cricket XI, six of whose members (M.K. Mackenzie, G.B. Gilroy, H.M.W. Wells, Cattley himself, his brother Cyril Francis, and I.B. Balfour) would be killed in action. Although he probably took Group A1 (Greek and/or Latin Literature/Philosophy) in Trinity Term 1911, he seems to have left without taking a degree in 1912 in order to join the Colonial Service, and on 28 February 1914, he was appointed Assistant Commissioner in West Africa (the Gold Coast, now Ghana). On 13 July 1915 he arrived in Liverpool from Accra and on 21 December 1916 he arrived in Plymouth from Accra, on both occasions presumably for a spell of home leave. On 13 March 1917 Cattley was presented by Mr Chamberlain to ‘A Court of Mayor and Aldermen holden in the Inner Chamber of the Guildhall of the City of London’ and ‘It is ordered that the said Gerald Wildman Cattley be admitted into the freedom of this City by Redemption in the Company of Grocers.’

 

Military and war service

During the war Cattley served in the Nigerian Land Contingent. There are few mentions of the Nigerian Land Contingent, one in The Times and a handful in provincial newspapers, including a reference to Major William Birrrell Gray, a colonial administrator, being appointed Commanding Officer of the Nigerian Land Contingent, Lagos Company, which served in the Cameroons. However, his name does not appear in an Army List. A few Medal cards for those serving in the Nigerian Land Contingent are listed in the National Archives, but unless they transferred to a regular unit their applications for medals were turned down. Before the war the garrison of the British West African colonies was maintained by their own governments and consisted of the West African Frontier Force recruited locally and officered by British officers seconded from the Army. The Nigerian Regiment, for example, consisted of 175 officers, 101 British NCOs (non-commissioned officers) and 4,996 locally recruited ORs (other ranks). During the war this was increased to 1,587 Europeans and 13,980 local recruits. The Gold Coast Regiment captured Togoland in 1914 and the whole force was engaged in operations in the Cameroons, until the last German forces, which had been besieged in the hill station of Mora, surrendered on 18 February 1916. Then the Gold Coast Regiment and the Nigerian Overseas Contingent were posted to East Africa. According to a War Office report (1922), ‘All available white males in West Africa volunteered for military service and as many as possible were released for this purpose, local staff being reduced to the irreducible minimum.’ Presumably Cattley was one of the volunteers accepted. John S. Gordon writing to Flight Magazine described the Nigerian Land Contingent thus: ‘This branch of the service is for the defence of this country, working with the native regiments here, and is similar to the Territorial Force at home.’

Cattley is listed as one of two European officials to die of Blackwater Fever in 1918, but he is listed in the Annual Gold Coast Report for 1918 as J.W. Cattley. He died in the Colonial Hospital, Cape Coast Colony, the Gold Coast, on 1 August 1918 of blackwater fever contracted while on active service. The illness is a serious complication of malaria, an autoimmune reaction that is apparently caused by the interaction of the malaria parasite and quinine. So it is much less common today than it was before 1950 because quinine is used less frequently for the treatment of malaria. The application for probate gives Cattley’s address as that of his mother and step-father (Meadow Bank, Dorking) as well as Elmina Castle in the Gold Goast. Elmina Castle was built by the Portuguese in 1482 and is the oldest European building in sub-Saharan Africa. It played an important role in the transatlantic slave trade, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is located on the South Coast of the Central Region of Ghana, and was one of the more important centres of the Gold Coast in the colonial era. Cattley left £13,647 14s. 19d. to his half-sister.

 

Cattley is not commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, whose policy is:

Commonwealth servicemen and women who died whilst in service during the war periods, regardless of the cause of death, are accorded war grave status. This includes those who were killed in action or died of their wounds, it also includes those who died of disease, illness, accident, suicide, homicide or judicial execution.

 Cattley’s death falls within the ‘war periods’ and he died of illness. His exclusion from those commemorated is presumably because the Nigerian Land Contingent is not a recognised service. He does however appear in the Oxford University Roll of Service.

 

Bibliography

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

Printed sources:

The War Office, Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War 1914–1920 (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1922), p. 383.

John S. Gordon [Letter], Flight, 25 January 1915, p. 85.

E.S. Craig and W.M. Gibson (eds), Oxford University Roll of Service (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920) p. 257.

 

Archival sources:

MCA: F29/1/MS5/5 (Notebook containing comments by H.W. Greene et al. on student progress [1895–1911]), p. 96.

 MCA: P320/P1/4 (Photograph of the cricket First XI [1909]).

OUA: UR 2/1/65.

J121/7243.

WO339/7682.

WO339/70873.