Ralph Hugh Hine-Haycock

• Matriculated: 1910

• Born: 23 March 1892

• Died: 3 May 1917

• Regiment: King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

• Grave/Memorial: Hénin Communal Cemetery (Extension): I.B.4

Family background

b. 23 March 1892 in Sidmouth as the only son of Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Ralph Watson Hine-Haycock, JP (1860–1926), and Margaret Emily Hine-Haycock (née Parker) (1870–1951) (m. 1890). At the time of the 1901 and 1911 Censuses, the family (with three servants) was living at Core Hill, Sidmouth, Devon.

Parents and antecedents

Hine-Haycock’s grandfather, William Hine Haycock (1831–1903), was admitted as a solicitor in 1853 and founded the firm of Hine-Haycock, Bridgman and Parker in College Hill, London. He retired in 1889. He was interested in philanthropic works and was a governor of the Foundling Hospital, Christ’s Hospital and St Bartholomew’s Hospital amongst others. He was a keen sportsman and member of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) for 37 years. He retired to Sidmouth, where the family made their home. Hine-Haycock’s father was a professional soldier. He was gazetted Lieutenant in the 2nd West Yorkshire Regiment in 1879 and Captain in the 3rd Battalion, the West Yorkshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales’s Own) in 1882, and in 1895 Major in the same battalion and Colonel in 1903. He retired from the army in 1907. He was a Land Tax Commissioner for Devon after he retired from the army and in 1919 he was appointed a magistrate. During the war he was Commandant of the Sidmouth Officers’ Treatment Centre.

Hine-Haycock’s mother was the daughter of a solicitor, Thomas Watson Parker (1835–80).

Siblings and their families

Hine-Haycock had one sister, Angela Margaret (1896–1958). Her later name was Gordon after her marriage in 1919 to Major (later Lieutenant-Colonel) Alan Douglas Gordon, DSO, MC, Croix de Guerre (1889–1952).

Alan Douglas Gordon was also the son of a professional soldier. During World War One, he became a machine-gun specialist and, like his father and father-in-law, became a Lieutenant-Colonel (1918) in the 62nd Machine-Gun Battalion of the Machine Gun Corps. From 1929 to 1932 he was an instructor in the Ahmadnagar Wing of the Small Arms School in India and from 1932 to 1936 the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment.

Education

Hine-Haycock attended Horris Hill Preparatory School (also known as Mr Evans’s Preparatory School), Hampshire (founded in 1888; cf. M.K. Mackenzie, G. Bonham-Carter, G.H. Alington, P.A. Tillard, H.F. Yeatman), from c.1899 to 1905, and then nearby Winchester from 1905 to 1909. Here he was in the Officers’ Training Corps for four years, played football for ‘F’ House, and rowed and participated in athletics with some success. He matriculated at Magdalen as a Commoner on 18 October 1910, having passed Responsions in September 1910. He took the First Public Examination in the Trinity Term (Greek and Latin Literature) and the Michaelmas Term (Holy Scripture) of 1911, and then began to read for a Pass Degree. But he failed Group B1 (English History) in Trinity Term 1913, and again in Michaelmas Term 1913, and he seems not to have sat Group B4 (Law) in that term either as he had by then decided to leave without a degree and join the Army, like his father. He must have re-sat Group B1 in Trinity Term 1914, for on 13 September 1914, i.e. after war had broken out and he had been given a proper commission, he wrote to President Warren, apologizing for his “dismal failure in the History School of last term for the second time” and adding: “It was really very unaccountable to myself and my coach and I am very upset at being such a disgrace to Magdalen.”

War service

As Hine-Haycock had been in the Oxford University Officers’ Training Corps for three years and passed Certificate ‘A’, he was commissioned Temporary Second Lieutenant in the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) on 2 September 1913. But on 11 August 1914, soon after the outbreak of war, he applied for a Regular Commission, and on 1 September 1914 he was promoted Lieutenant. When war broke out, the Regiment’s 1st (Regular) Battalion was on garrison duty in Singapore, but it sailed from Singapore on 27 September 1914 and arrived in Southampton on 9 November, enabling Hine-Haycock to become one of its new subalterns. From 9 until 18 November, the Battalion was stationed at Hursley Park, between Romsey and Winchester in Hampshire, and it was then stationed in Harwich, Essex, for a month, after which it returned to Hursley Park, where it stayed until 15 January 1915. On 16 January 1915, it disembarked at Le Havre as part of the 83rd Brigade, in the 28th Division, with Hine-Haycock as one of its officers, and on the following day it travelled by train to Hazebrouck and marched from there to Oultersteene (Outtersteene) in northern France, just south-west of Bailleul, where it stayed in billets until 1 February.

At 19.00 hours on 19 April 1915, the Battalion marched out and took over ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ trenches from the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment, but at 08.00 hours on the following morning, the right detached portion of ‘A’ trench was heavily shelled and knocked to pieces, causing 20 casualties. When Second Lieutenant William Ernest Boone (1879–1915) visited the detached trench at 09.00 hours, he found only 12 men still holding it, so remained in command of the post and was killed in action at 16.30 hours; he has no known grave. On 21 April, the situation continued as normal, but at about 17.30 hours Hine-Haycock sustained a severe gunshot wound in the chest and upper right arm and was sent to No. 7 Stationary Hospital at Boulogne, where he was a patient from 26 April to about 10 May 1915, when he was sent back to England and admitted to the 1st Western General Hospital in Liverpool on 12 May.

Although Hine-Haycock’s wounds had healed by 17 July 1915, the gunshot wound had damaged the muscular spinal nerve in his right arm and affected the movement of the third and fourth fingers of his right hand. Consequently, he was granted sick leave from 18 May to 8 November 1915. But on 9 November 1915 a Medical Board that convened at Blackdown, Hampshire, declared him fit for Home Service. So with effect from 10 November 1915 he spent a short interim period with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion of his old Regiment that was stationed in Hull and then reported for light duties with the 9th (Service) Battalion, the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, 48th Brigade, 16th Division. The Battalion had been stationed at Blackdown since September 1915, prior to its embarkation for Le Havre in December 1915, the month in which Hine-Haycock was appointed as an Instructor at a young officers’ instruction school at Kilworth, County Cork, Ireland. He was promoted Captain on 2 March 1916, took part in the suppression of the Sinn Fein Easter Uprising of April 1916, then returned to France in early January 1917 and served for nearly four months on the HQ Staff of the First Army.

Meanwhile on 26 October 1915 the 1st Battalion of the KOYLI had left France for the Salonika Front, so when Hine-Haycock returned to the Western Front on 9 October 1916, he was attached to the 10th Battalion of the same Regiment (64th Brigade, 21st Division), when it was resting at Allouagne, some six miles west of Béthune, presumably as a replacement for the casualties that the Battalion had suffered during the attack on Gueudecourt on 25/26 September 1916. On 11 October 1916, the Battalion went into the trenches near Béthune and stayed there until 26 October. It then rested at Annequin, three miles east of Béthune, until 1 November and served in the nearby trenches from 2 to 12 and from 18 until 29 November 1916. From 30 November until 7 December the Battalion was in billets at Sailly Labourse, just west of Annequin, before spending a week in Béthune itself. From 15 to 22 December it was in the Hohenzollern trenches, then in reserve until 28 December, and finally took up position in the trenches at Fouquereuil, a southern suburb of Béthune. The War Diary is illegible for January 1917, but from 1 to 11 February 1917 the Battalion trained at Wormhoudt in northern France before returning to Béthune on 12 February and spending six days in the trenches at Cambrin (13 to 19 February). It then spent time in billets in Annequin before returning to the trenches on 24 February 1917, when the War Diary complained about “much mud owing to frost following thaw and trenches falling in”.

On 6 March 1917, the Battalion began a three-day stay in billets at Robecq, seven miles north-west of Béthune, and on 9 March it began to march south-south-west to Ivergny, seven miles north-west of Doullens, where it trained from 13 to 26 March. By 31 March 1917 it had marched the c.20 miles eastwards to the trenches at Boisleux au Mont, south of Arras, and on 8 April, the day before the beginning of the Second Battle of Arras, it moved to its start position. The Battalion then took part in the assault on the Hindenburg Line until 11 April, when it pulled back westwards to Boiry Becquerell until 20 April and then returned to Boisleux au Mont for five days. On 25 April 1917, two days after A.B. Tyson’s death in roughly the same place, it was back in the front line overlooking Fontaine-les-Croisilles and taking casualties. Hine-Haycock seems to have returned to the 10th Battalion about then, for on 2 May 1917 the War Diary reads:

Moved up in the evening in support of 15th D[urham] L[ight] I[nfantry] [also in 64th Brigade, 21st Division] – ‘A’ Coy under Capt[ain] Hine-Haycock in the Hindenburg front line. ‘B’, ‘C’ & ‘D’ Coys in the Hindenburg Support Line.

Then, on 3 May 1917, the opening day of the Second Battle of Bullecourt (3–17 May 1917; cf. P.W. Beresford), when the 62nd Division tried, unsuccessfully, to take the devastated village of Bullecourt, the Battalion War Diary continues as follows:

After a short bombardment [the] attack opened. 15th DLI supported by 10th KOYLI bomb[ed] down Hindenburg Line. 110th Bde to attack over the open or up Hindenburg Support Line. 62nd Division – to make a frontal attack on [the] Hindenburg Line west of Bullecourt. Tanks supporting 110th Bde put out of action at once. One tank supporting 64th Inf. Bde; not yet light and tank had to move down parallel to the Hindenburg Support Line in order to keep direction. T[h]e tank reached our trench and was then put out of action by [an] enemy trench mortar.

Moreover, the trench beyond the enemy block was found to be full of wire, trapping the first bombing squads of the Durham Light Infantry who went over the top, and numerous enemy snipers who had taken up their positions near the block also did a great deal of damage as the men climbed out of their trenches. As a result, the Battalion failed to make any headway and Hine-Haycock, together with his servant Private Tom Turner, was killed in action by a shell near Hénin-sur-Cojeul just after zero hour on 3 May 1917, aged 24, while leading his Company in the above attack. When the Battle ended on 17 May, few of the objectives had been met. The Battalion had lost two officers and nine ORs killed in action and 48 ORs killed, wounded or missing and the Australians had lost 7,000 men, all to no good purpose.

Hine-Haycock’s Battalion retrieved his body and that of Turner, carried them back about 1,500 yards, and buried them together in the military cemetery on the eastern side of the civil cemetery. The Pioneers put up a wooden cross and built a brick wall about a foot high around the grave, and Hine-Haycock’s men collected plants from the village and put them on the grave. Hine-Haycock is now buried in Hénin-sur-Cojeul Communal Cemetery Extension (five miles south-east of Arras), in Grave I.B.4, with the inscription: “Only son of Col. & Mrs. Hine-Haycock of Core Hill, Sidmouth, Devon”. He is commemorated on the Memorial in Lord’s Cricket Ground. Turner has no known grave but is commemorated on Bay 7 of the Arras Memorial. Hine-Haycock left £99 19s. 2d.

Bibliography

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

Printed sources:

[Anon.], ‘An Old Salopian’s Death’, Wellington Journal (24 January 1903), no. 2,503, p. 7.

[Anon.], ‘Captain Ralph Hugh Hine-Haycock [obituary]’, The Times, no. 41,514 (26 June 1917), p. 8.

[Anon.], ‘Unofficially Announced: Captain Ralph Hugh Hine-Haycock’, The Morning Post, no. 45,238 (16 May 1917), p. 3.

Rendall et al., iii (1921), p. 34

[Anon.], ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Gordon’, The Times, no. 46,138 (20 May 1952), p. 6.

Leinster-Mackay (1984), pp. 107, 113, 139.

Archival sources:

MCA: PR32/C/3/658–664 President Warren’s War-Time Correspondence, Letters relating to R.H. Hine-Haycock [1910–17]).

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

OUA: UR 2/1/72.

WO95/2162.

WO95/2274.

WO339/19823.