Philip John Thomas Blakeway MA, TD

• Matriculated: 1883

• Born: 11 March 1864

• Died: 16 June 1915

• Regiment: Army Chaplain to the Forces, attached to Middlesex Hussars

• Grave/Memorial: Ismailia War Memorial Cemetery: A.108

Family background

b. 11 March 1864 as the eldest son of Philip E. Blakeway (1826–71) and Maria Ann Blakeway (née Wootton) (c.1832–1921) (m. 1857). At the time of the 1871 Census Blakeway and his siblings were staying with their maternal grandmother in Folkestone (one servant).

 

Parents and antecedents

Blakeway’s paternal grandfather, John Prytherch Blakeway (c.1790–1877) was from Shropshire, but became a wine merchant in London. Blakeway’s father was a partner in P.W. Thomas, Sons and Co., Stockbrokers of Threadneedle Street, and a director of several mining companies.

Blakeway’s maternal grandfather, Thomas Wootton (c.1798–after 1851), was a London solicitor.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Mabel Wootton (1858–1944), died in Malvern, unmarried;

(2) Ellen Maria (b. 1860); later Buchanan after her marriage (1882) to Andrew Archibald Buchanan (1850–1932); one son;

(3) Thomas Wootton (1866–1952); married first (1896) Evelyn Grace Clarke (1876–1901); one daughter; then in 1905 Louisa Agnes Anne Ray (1875–1952).

Andrew Archibald Buchanan, an East India Banker and Merchant, was the third son of Sir Andrew Buchanan, GCB, PC, DL, Bt (1807–1882), a diplomat who was ambassador to Prussia, Russia and Austria successively between 1862 and 1878.

Thomas Wootton, a professional soldier, was made a Lieutenant in the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) in 1884; at the time of his marriage in 1896 he was a Captain in the 6^th Dragoon Guards. By the time of his second marriage, in 1905, he had retired from the Army but in October 1914 he was made a temporary Captain in the Army Service Corps and while a temporary Major he was awarded the DSO in the Birthday Honours of 1918 for “Services rendered in connection with Military Operations in France and Flanders” (London Gazette, no. 30,716, 3 June 1918, p. 6,457).

 

Wife

Blakeway was married in 1893 to Sybil Agnes Blakeway (née Ricardo) (1869–1937), the daughter of Francis Ricardo (1834–1920) a stockbroker. She was a first cousin of the 8^th Duke of Richmond (1870–1935), and memorial plaques to the Duke, his son, Lord Strettington (1899–1919), who died of wounds in northern Russia in 1919, and Sybil Agnes were dedicated in the Benedictine Priory Church at Boxgrove, at the same service, by the Bishop of Lewes. At the time of the 1901 Census Blakeway and his wife were living at 80 Prince of Wales Road, Cyril Mansions, Battersea (no servants), and at the time of the 1911 census they were living in Walberton Vicarage, Arundel (four servants). By 1919 Blakeway’s widow had moved from Walberton Vicarage, to The Cottage, Halnaker, Chichester, Sussex. They had no children.

 

 

Education and professional life

Blakeway attended the Reverend A(rthur) L(aw) Hussey’s (c.1833–1915) Grange School, Folkestone, Kent (now defunct), from c.1873 to 1878, and then Malvern College from Spring Term 1878 to 1883, but gained no distinction there. He matriculated as a Commoner at Magdalen in Michaelmas Term 1883 but soon began to under-perform, and at the meeting of Magdalen’s Tutorial Board of March 1884 it was ordered that his name “be retained on the College books: but that he not be allowed to reside until the time for the First Public Examination, and he be warned that in case he fail to pass at that time the name will be removed”. Whereupon Blakeway failed Moderations on 22 May 1884 and his name is not mentioned again until 26 April 1890, when the following motion was passed by Magdalen’s Tutorial Board: “That the President be requested to replace the name of Mr. P.J.T. Blakeway on the books of the College, and that he be permitted to return into residence”. He managed to pass Moderations in Trinity Term 1890 and successfully sat for a Pass Degree (Groups A [Classics], B4 [Law] and D [Elements of Religious Knowledge]) in Michaelmas Term 1890. He took his BA in 1891 and his MA in 1901.

Blakeway seems to have anticipated his failure in Moderations in May 1884 since at the same time that he was sent out of residence in March he was gazetted Lieutenant in the 3^rd Battalion, Royal Munster Fusiliers (London Gazette, no. 25,330, 21 March 1884, p. 1,349). In November 1885 he was transferred to the 8^th (King’s Royal Irish) Hussars (“The Cross-belts”) (LG, no. 25,533, 24 November 1885, p. 5,416). He saw service in India but resigned his commission as a Lieutenant in the 8^th Hussars in March 1890 (LG, no. 26,036, 25 March 1890, p. 1,804), and was ordained priest in 1893 after taking a course at Ely Theological College in 1891. He was Curate of St Luke’s Church, Camberwell (1891–93); Chaplain and Almoner of Lathom (1893–1900); Curate of Lambeth (1900–01); Curate of St Andrew’s, Battersea (1901–02); Curate of St Pancras, Chichester (1902–03); Chaplain to the Forces at Chichester Barracks (1903); Rector of All Saints, Hastings (1903–07); Chaplain to the Earl of Lathom (Edward Bootle-Wilbraham (1837–98), Conservative politician) (1893–98); Rector of All Saints, Hastings (1903–07); and Vicar of St Mary’s, Walberton, Arundel (1907–15). In 1909 he was gazetted Chaplain 3^rd class, ranking as Major in the Territorial Force (LG, no. 28,273, 23 July 1909, p. 5,627); he had previously been Honorary Chaplain to the Duke of Cambridge’s Hussars. Later the same year he was made Chaplain in the Territorial Force, 2^nd class, ranking as Lieutenant Colonel (LG, no. 28,308, 16 November 1909, p. 8,462). He was a member of the Naval and Military and Athenaeum Clubs. President Warren wrote of him posthumously: “[he was] one of the most light-hearted of a light-hearted and merry generation, fond of the posthorn and other innocent delights”.

 

 

As a clergyman, he met with “much acceptance and success”, and after his death the GOC (General Officer Commanding) of his Division wrote as follows to his wife: “His death has caused a blank in the London Mounted Brigade & indeed in the whole Division which it will be difficult to fill up. Having been a soldier himself he knew a soldier’s difficulties & requirements & right zealously did he set himself to minister to them.”

 

War service

Blakeway had joined the Middlesex (Duke of Cambridge’s) Hussars (later the 1^st Country of London Yeomanry) as a Chaplain on 11 July 1894 and he was connected with that regiment until his death. In December 1914 he was advanced to Chaplain 1^st class with the rank of Colonel (LG, no. 29,013, 18 December 1914, p. 10,902), and he was then awarded the Territorial Decoration (LG, no. 29,053, 29 January 1915, p. 920). He had been attached in July 1914 to the 4th (London) Mounted Brigade and this sailed for Egypt in March 1915 and arrived in late April en route to Gallipoli. Although Blakeway had not reported sick since his arrival in Egypt, he was discovered dead in his bed on 16 June 1915 at Ismailia, Egypt, aged 51 (despite what it says on his tombstone). The outside temperature that day was 118°F (47.8°C) in the shade and the cause of his death was eventually diagnosed as “cardiac syncope” and “climate on a debilitated heart” – i.e. heat stroke. He was buried with full military honours on 17 June 1915 in the Ismailia War Memorial Cemetery (to the west of the Suez Canal), Egypt. His grave, A.108, is inscribed: “In loving Memory”. He is commemorated on the Memorial in the King’s School Ely and on the Aldershot Memorial, also on a memorial tablet in St Mary’s Church, Walberton, that was sculpted by the many-sided and controversial artist Eric Gill (1882–1940). But as he was at Malvern College for one term only, his name does not feature on the War Memorial in Malvern College Chapel even though it was included in the School’s Roll of Honour (August 1914–November 1916) and Roll of Service (1914–18). He left £15,359 8s 9d and the Army awarded his widow a pension of £150 p.a.

 

 

 

Bibliography

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

Printed sources:

[Anon.] ‘Sussex Vicar’s Death at Front’ [obituary], Chichester Observer, no. 1,378, 30 June 1915, p. 2.

[Thomas Herbert Warren], [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 34, extra number (5 November 1915), p. 18.

Leinster-Mackay (1984), p. 155.

Clutterbuck, ii (2002), pp. 43–4.

Youngson (2008).

 

Archival sources:

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

WO374/7052.