Gilchrist Stanley ("Cockie") Maclagan BA

• Matriculated: 1898

• Born: 5 October 1879

• Died: 25 April 1915

• Regiment: Royal Warwickshire Regiment

• Grave/Memorial: Ypres Menin Gate Memorial: Panel 8

Family background

b. 5 October 1879 at 9, Cadogan Place, Chelsea, London SW1, as the youngest son (third child) of Dr Thomas John Maclagan (1838–1903) and Isabel[la] Maclagan (1843–1908) (née Scudamore) (m. 1869). The family was still living at the above address at the time of the 1881 Census (four servants) and the 1901 Census (six servants), but had moved by the time of the 1911 Census and in 1906 was living in Timaru, New Zealand.

 

Parents and antecedents

Maclagan’s father studied the Humanities at Glasgow and then Medicine at Edinburgh, becoming an MD in 1860; he then studied medicine at the Universities of Paris, Munich and Vienna. On returning home, he first held a resident appointment at a hospital in Jersey and then, from 1864 to 1866, worked as Resident Medical Superintendant at the Dundee Infirmary. He began his work during a bad typhus epidemic and became the first clinician in Scotland to investigate this sickness by means of the clinical thermometer. While in Dundee, he began his research into the causes of rheumatic fever and the use of salicin, an anti-inflammatory agent that is related to aspirin, as a means of treating it. After ten years as a successful general practitioner in Dundee, he moved to London in 1879 and established himself at 9, Cadogan Place, Chelsea, SW1, where he became a very successful and fashionable doctor, whose patients included the Duchess of Albany, Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (a daughter [1846–1923] and son-in-law [1831–1917; m. 1866] of Queen Victoria) and Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), a Scottish philosopher who was considered the most important social commentator of the time. His published work included The Germ Theory of Disease (1876), Rheumatism, its Nature, Pathology, and Successful Treatment (1881, 2^nd edn 1896) and Fever: A Clinical Study (1888). An obituarist described him as “one of the very kindest and most sympathetic of men, and certainly one of the most unselfish […] a physician of the highest type, who was fully imbued with all those traditions which have made the profession of medicine honourable”.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Helen Beatrice (1872–1960) (later Gold after her marriage [1901] to Harcourt Gilbey Gold [later Sir] [1876–1952]);

(2) Norman (1874–1937) (m. [1900] Alice Opre Tremayne [1875–1958]), one daughter, one son;

(3) Fergus (1870–1906 [Auckland, New Zealand]) (m. [1906] Christina Ella Johnston [probably born in New Zealand and died there as Mrs P. W. Reeves]), one son.

 

 

Harcourt Gilbey Gold, universally known as “Tarka”, was a famous oarsman (stroke) and rowing coach who was at Magdalen 1895–1900, became President of the OUBC, and on 20 February 1897 was nominated by the student newspaper The Isis as the 102^nd “Isis Idol”. Gold was the uncle of C.A. Gold, had his own stockbrokerage (Harcourt Gold & Co.), survived the war, and was ultimately the first man to be knighted for his services to rowing. It was said of Gold: “he has wonderful knees; and his legs are always loudly appreciated by the crowd at Putney”. In 1898, Harcourt Gilbey’s elder sister, Ellen Gilbey Gold (1873–1935), i.e. C.A. Gold’s aunt, married Guy Nickalls (1866–1935; Magdalen 1886–91), another of Magdalen’s rowing stars of the late nineteenth century, whose autobiography, Life’s a Pudding, contains several minutely remembered anecdotes about Magdalen’s “Golden Age” of rowing.

Norman matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, in October 1893 and registered as a student of Medicine. In June 1895 he passed Moderations and Prelims and then on 1 May 1896 he began the clinical course in Medicine at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. But there is no evidence that he either completed this course or practised medicine, since when he got married in 1900, he described himself in the Marriage Register as a Gentleman. By the time of the 1911 Census, Norman and his family were living on private means at Discove House, Bruton, Somerset (15 rooms, four servants), which they had leased from the Earl of Ilchester. By 1920 and thereafter they lived at “Tremayne”, Twynham Rd, Southbourne-on-Sea, an eastern suburb of Bournemouth, Hampshire. On 6 February 1915, Norman was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 1/4^th Battalion, Prince Albert’s (Somerset Light Infantry) (Territorial Forces), a Territorial unit that had sailed from Southampton for Bombay on 9 October 1914; was transferred to Mesopotamia in early 1916 as part of Tigris Force (37^th Infantry Brigade, 3^rd [Lahore] Division); took part in the costly and abortive Battle of Dujailah (7–9 March 1916; see R.P. Dunn-Pattison); and remained in Mesopotamia for the rest of the war. But judging from his Medal Card, Norman, who was promoted Lieutenant in 1916, never left England because of poor health and was invalided out of the Army. He left £42,006 18s. 6p.

Alice Opre Tremayne was one of the two daughters (by his second wife) of Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur Tremayne, JP DL (1827–1905), a career officer from 1846 until 1861 when he retired from the 13^th Light Dragoons, having commanded the Regiment from 1860 to 1861. On 25 October 1854 he had survived the Battle of Balaclava as the Commander of ‘E’ Troop during the Charge of the Light Brigade despite being wounded and losing his horse. He was also a prodigious mountaineer. In 1868 he inherited most of the fortune of his uncle, Sir Charles Lemon, FRS, MP (1784–1868), 2^nd Baronet Lemon of Carclew, an estate near Mylor, five miles north of Falmouth, and spent the rest of his life as a landowner. “A real old English gentleman”, he had the reputation of being a concerned and benevolent landlord and was very active in the social and political life of Cornwall, becoming the High Sheriff of Cornwall for 1871 and the Conservative MP for Truro from 1878 to 1880. Judging from the account of Alice Opre’s wedding that appeared in the St James’s Gazette on 13 June 1900, her family was well-endowed and connected with many rich people.

Fergus was educated at Elstree Preparatory School from c.1877 to c.1883 (founded 1848 at Elstree, Hertfordshire, and moved to Woolhampton, near Newbury, Berkshire, in 1938), and at Harrow School from c.1883 to 1889, when he matriculated at Clare College, Cambridge. After leaving Cambridge in Easter Term 1892 without taking a degree, he worked for a time as a businessman in South Africa, where he became well-known as a big game hunter, especially of Nyala antelopes, and he died near Auckland, New Zealand, less than a month after his marriage in May 1906.

Christina Ella Johnston was the daughter of Christopher Johnston, the foreman of the Ireland Brothers’ steam-driven tannery, Panmure, a south-eastern suburb of Auckland, which operated from c.1870 to 1923. After Fergus’s death she remarried and by 1930, when her only son married in London, she had become Mrs P.W. Reeves and was living at Naseby St, Merivale, Canterbury, New Zealand.

 

Education and professional life

Maclagan was privately tutored at home until he attended Mortimer House Preparatory School, Berkshire, from 1891 to 1893, “where his brains were as active and clever as his hands are today: his prizes were more numerous than his cricket scores”. In 1893, Eton College “received him with open arms, and he boarded at the Revd T. Dalton’s, where he was lucky enough to find a very kind fag-master. His contemporaries all agree that he was a quiet[,] nicely behaved little boy during his early years at Eton.” He remained at Eton until 1898, where he “entered on that sphere of usefulness in which he has since continually shone, his slight form and thin legs fitting him for the honourable post of coxswain. Fate and one Lloyd were against his steering the Eton Eight and he contented himself with winning the Trial Eights” and coxed the Second VIII. On 19 October 1898 he matriculated as a Commoner at Magdalen, having taken Responsions in Hilary Term 1898, and became a pupil of C.C.J. Webb. In Trinity Term 1899 he passed both parts of the First Public Examination (Holy Scripture and Greek and Latin Literature), and in Trinity Term 1902 he was awarded a 3^rd in Modern History. He took his BA on 20 November 1902. While at Oxford, Maclagan had a long and successful career as a cox and when, in his first year, he was asked:

“Have you ever rowed?” he replied with becoming modesty, “No, but I’ve coxed a good deal at Eton.” This was sufficient; in the same term he steered a Trial Eight at Moulsford and at once showed his prowess as a coxswain. The next term he steered the ’Varsity Eight, but unfortunately hit upon a year when the long run of Oxford victories was to be stopped.

Maclagan also coxed the Magdalen VIII from 1899 to 1902, a period that included the year 1900, when it went Head of the River with C.P. Rowley as its stroke, having wrested the Headship from New College in summer 1900 after a six-day battle. As a tribute to his skill on the river, on 24 February 1900 Maclagan, like Harcourt Gilbey Gold before him, was nominated by the Oxford student newspaper The Isis as its (173^rd) “Isis Idol”. Maclagan also coxed the University VIII against Cambridge over the same period, including 1900, when he was on the Committee of the Oxford University Boat Club (OUBC), and 1901, when the Oxford VIII won by a mere two-fifths of a length. Finally, Maclagan coxed the Leander VIII at Henley from 1899 to 1901 and from 1902 to 1905, thus “exacting a revenge on his old antagonist Lloyd” and becoming the only man to have taken part six times in Henley’s premier international event, the Grand Challenge Cup race, which his crew won twice, in 1900 and 1901. His laudatio in The Isis concluded with the following affectionate description of his ability on the river and his likeability as a character:

Before passing from his coxing career it would be well to point out his chief merits. He possesses light hands, determination, a clear and commanding voice. In the capacity of an oar he won the Magdalen Pairs last year [1899] in company with a weaker man than himself – a most creditable performance. During his first ’Varsity training he acquired the name of “Cockie”, and it is by this appellation that he is generally known. His personal appearance is striking. In dress he is immaculate, his trousers are well creased, and the recipe for this is not to be dragged from him. His eyes are black and piercing – so is his hair, which is never ruffled. As his dress is so is his abode; his rooms are a picture of neatness and thoroughly in keeping with their owner. In spite of his love of personal order and temperate habits, he enters joyfully into any disturbance, but for dancing he has no predilection. [Over the years his love of fishing as a child has] yielded to an intense devotion to shooting, and his now a demon at driven grouse; but if the birds do not chance to come over his butt it is best to avoid him. On the ice his passion for learning new figures is apt to make him break through his customary reserve, and at double rockers on his back he is a whale. He is always cool and collected; at Henley only last year the umpire had just given the usual warning that if he had no reply he should say “Go!” – whereupon a clear voice rang out from the stern, “Half a mo’.” During the same race he remarked, by way of encouraging the crew, that they were leading by a “length”. If one wishes to be excluded from his select circle of friends it is only necessary to tear his clothing: one former friend has found this out to his cost. If there is one extraordinary trait in his character it is a passionate desire to walk abroad in the early morning in chemise de nuit. As a cox he deserves even better luck than he has had; may it still improve as he grows older. Socially “Cockie” is very popular, and deservedly so, as he is always cheerful and one of the staunchest of friends.

 

 

In 1904, Maclagan joined the Stock Exchange but maintained his passion for rowing, and by 1907 he was considered “the most acute and most experienced coxswain of the present day”. In January 1908, he and his brother-in-law Harcourt Gilbey Gold (see above) were co-opted onto the Amateur Rowing Association’s Committee of Selectors, whose task was to organize the representation of the Affiliated Clubs of the United Kingdom in preparation for the Olympic Regatta – which would take place that year at Henley from 28 July to 1 August. Although Guy Nickalls, Maclagan and A.G. Kirby – who died on active service on 29 March 1917 – trained hard in the hope of becoming members of the 1908 Leander crew at Henley, only Nickalls and Maclagan succeeded in being selected for the VIII which, on 1 August 1908, would beat the “redoubtable Belgian crew, the terror of the then modern English oarsmen, the crew who had beaten the famous Cambridge crowd”. Another member of the victorious VIII was Frederick Septimus Kelly [later DSC] (1881–1916), the Australian composer who, having studied History at Balliol from 1903 to 1906, became a close friend of the poet Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), helped to bury him on the island of Skyros en route to the Dardanelles, and was himself killed in action at Beaucourt-sur-Ancre on 13 November 1916, while serving as a Lieutenant-Commander with the Hood Battalion, part of the 189^th Brigade in the 63^rd (Royal Naval) Division. In his autobiography, Guy Nickalls described Maclagan’s part in Leander’s victory as follows:

The start was beautifully level: [the Belgians] did 43 and we a long crisp 42. I had never felt the like of it, and never in my life had I felt like galloping at full tilt the whole distance. We had a quarter of a length lead at the end of a minute, and, letting the stroke drop to 38, led [by] half a length at the end of two minutes. At the second signal box we led by three-quarters of a length, rowing 37. Cockie had warned us that unless absolutely necessary he was not going to ask for more than one “ten”, and that we were to let ourselves go and give it good and strong. The psychological moment had arrived. Cockie’s clear voice rang out immediately after the Belgians’ great spurt at Remenham Farm had subsided. “Now then, Leander, we’ll have our ten strokes and let them know it! One –”. The boat fairly leapt out of the water, up to 38 again. We fairly sang along, cleared them at once and began sailing away. Bucknall dropped to 36 again. The race was over. We had them beat. Don [Burnell] growled and broke into a paddle. I was all for rowing in at 40, but Cockie looked back. “Take it easy and keep together, Leander,” shouted he, and we swung over the line easy winners, by more than two lengths, in record time.

Maclagan continued to enjoy a considerable reputation in the rowing world and for several years represented the OUBC on the Committee of the Amateur Rowing Association. So when the post of Honorary Secretary became vacant in 1909, he was unanimously elected as the replacement and held the post from 1910 until his death. His Eton obituarist described him as “as gentle and manly a boy as ever was at Eton […] Keen-eyed, happy, bright and intelligent both in work and play, he had a natural modesty and a lovable disposition.” President Warren wrote of him posthumously:

He was, what is even rarer than a great oar, a really great “Cox”, and he was that because he was a man of sterling character, of excellent temper. Ready and sound decision, bright spirit, good all-round ability, and most engaging and amiable disposition.

In early 1914, Maclagan was accorded the ultimate distinction in the rowing world when he was elected a Steward of the Henley Royal Regatta (of whom there are about 50–55 at any one time), but he lived to enjoy this honour for one season only. He was a member of the Union Club, Trafalgar Square. At the time of the 1911 Census he was living in a five-room flat at 18, Berkeley St, London W1 (no servants); when attesting in 1914 he gave his address as 3, Whitehall Court, London SW1; and when writing his will at about the same time he gave it as 84, Whitehall Court, London SW1.

 

 

War service

Although over 30, Maclagan volunteered for the Army immediately on the outbreak of war and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant on probation in the 3^rd (Reserve) Battalion, the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, on 15 August 1914. But he was subsequently transferred to the Regiment’s 1^st (Regular) Battalion, which had disembarked in Boulogne on 23 August 1914 and taken part in the Retreat from Mons as part of the 10^th Brigade, in the 4^th Division. It had arrived in Meteren, near Ypres, on 13 October, spent 1 to 17 November at Houdlines, and taken part in the local Christmas Day truce at St Yves. Maclagan was sent to France in December 1914 as a replacement officer, and together with 50 men joined the 1^st Battalion at St Yves on 2 January 1915. From then until 16 March the Battalion was in and out of the trenches in the area of St Yves and La Creche and rested further south, at Armentières, from 16 to 21 March. Between 29 March and 13 April the Battalion was in and out of the trenches in the area of La Creche and Steenbecque, with a couple of days in Reserve in early April. The 1^st Battalion then trained at Oultersteene from 14 to 23 April, and at 04.30 hours on 25 April 1915 it was at Vielve, ready to take part in an attack on the German positions at Sint Juliaan, with the Brigade on the right of the line and Maclagan’s Battalion on the left of the Brigade. But the Germans used gas and the British were forced to withdraw at 07.00 hours. Maclagan was killed in action somewhere near Pilckem Wood, aged 35, one of the Battalion’s 518 casualties killed, wounded and missing. No known grave. He is commemorated on Panel 8 of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial and on the Stock Exchange War Memorial. He left £35,360 14s. 8d. and his brother Norman and Harcourt Gilbey Gold acted as his executors.

 

Bibliography

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

 

Printed sources:

[Anon.], ‘Isis Idols, No. CII’: ‘Mr Harcourt Gilbey Gold, O.U.B.C’, The Isis, no. 116 (20 February 1897), p. 159.

[Anon.], ‘Isis Idols, No. CLXXIII’: ‘Mr Gilchrist Stanley Maclagan, O.U.B.C’, The Isis, no. 197 (2 June 1900), pp. 235–6.

[Anon.], ‘Maclagan-Tremayne’ [report on society wedding], St James’s Gazette (London), no. 6,208 (13 June 1900), p. 10.

[Anon.], ‘Obituary: Thomas John Maclagan, M.D. Edin.’, British Medical Journal, no. 2,204, part 1 (28 March 1903), p. 766.

[Anon.], ‘Amateur Rowing Association: Annual Meeting’, The Times, no. 40,088 (21 December 1912), p. 13.

[Anon.], ‘Amateur Rowing Association: Annual General Meeting’, The Times, no. 40,401 (22 December 1913), p. 13

[Anon.], ‘A Famous Cox’: The Late G.S. Maclagan’ [obituary], The Times, no. 40,844 (3 May 1915), p. 3.

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 33, no. 18 (7 May 1915), pp. 290–1.

[Anon.], ‘Stanley Maclagan’ [obituary], The Eton College Chronicle, no. 1,527 (13 May 1915), p. 808.

John Buchan, ‘A Soldier’s Battle: The Second Fight for Ypres: April 22–May 13’, The Times, no. 40,905 (13 July 1915), p. 7.

Nickalls (1939), pp. 184–6, 196, 199, 202–4, 211.

Hutchins (1993), pp. 24, 25, 29, 37.

 

Archival sources:.

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 2.

OUA: UR 2/1/36.

WO95/1484.

WO339/28972.

 

On-line sources:

 Philip Boys and Roy Mills. ‘Captain Arthur Tremayne – 13^th Light Dragoons’ (in progress): http://chargeofthelightbrigade.com/allmen/allmenT/allmenT_13LD/tremayne_a_13LD.html (accessed 19 September 2017).