George Cadenhead BA

• Matriculated: 1911

• Born: 10 October 1892

• Died: 10 May 1915

• Regiment: Cameron Highlanders

• Grave/Memorial: Ypres Menin Gate Memorial: Panels 38 and 40

Family background

b. 10 October 1892 as the younger son (third and youngest child) of James Cadenhead, ARSA RSW (1858–1927) and Wilhelmina Cadenhead (née Wilson) (1861–1943) (m. 1891). At the time of the 1891 Census the family lived at 15, Inverleith Terrace, Edinburgh, and it later moved to 14, Ramsay Gardens, Edinburgh, since Cadenhead’s parents were still living at the former address in 1914.

 

Parents and antecedents

The family was an old Lowland Scottish family that originated in Ettrick Forest, Selkirkshire, a royal domain. Their surname first appeared in writing in 1467 when reference was made to William de Caldanhead (b. c.1420), a Cistercian monk of Newbattle Abbey, Midlothian (founded in 1140 by monks from Melrose Abbey, Roxburghshire), who was also the Abbey’s Cellarius (treasurer and factor).

Cadenhead’s father, the son of a Fiscal, was a well-known Scottish artist and scholar who is best remembered for his watercolours (landscapes and portraits), but who also produced etchings and dry-points. He was a founder member of the Society of Scottish Artists (Chairman 1898) and elected a member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1921.

His mother was the daughter of a coal-master who had begun his working life as a blacksmith.

Cousin of James Angus [later Sir Angus] Gillan [later KBE CMG] (1885–1981), Magdalen 1905–09, 3^rd in Modern History, the Olympic oarsman (1908 and 1912) and Sudan Civil Servant, and John Robert Wilson Gillan (1890–1975), who was an undergraduate at Magdalen from 1909 to 1912, was awarded a 4^th in Modern History, and was ordained as a Minister in the Church of Scotland in 1925.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Mary [Mairi] Katherine [Catherine] (b. 1894) (probably Thomson after her marriage in Monteath [1929] to Andrew P. Thomson);

(2) William James (1898–1927).

 

 

Education and professional life

Cadenhead attended Edinburgh Academy from 1899 to 1911, where he became a Prefect; he also spent three years in Edinburgh’s Junior Officers’ Training Corps and rose to the rank of Corporal. Apparently his “rapid growth prevented him from taking a prominent part in school games. But those who knew him best realised that he was one who would do good work in the world as his constitution matured.” He matriculated at Magdalen as a Commoner on 17 October 1911 and was exempted from taking Responsions because he had a Scottish Leaving Certificate. He took the First Public Examination in the Hilary and Michaelmas Terms of 1912 and then read for a Pass Degree (Groups B1 [English History], Michaelmas Term 1913, B4 [Law] and A1 [Greek Philosophy and Greek or Latin History], Trinity Term 1914).

Cadenhead, who had rowed at no. 2 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1912 and at no. 6 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1913 [front row seated on the right with left hand over right hand]; A. J. B. Hudson, who had stroked the Second Torpids VIII of 1913 [standing on his own in the very back row; G.B. Lockhart, who had rowed at no. 5 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1913 [standing third from the right in the back row with his arms behind his back and his jacket tightly buttoned up]

Magdalen College Boat Club menu (19 February 1913)

The Prince of Wales’s signature is bottom right on the centre panel and Cadenhead’s is third down on the right in the right-hand panel.

(Courtesy of Ms Caroline Marsh from the papers of George Miln)

 

While at Magdalen, Cadenhead took up rowing and rowed at no. 2 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1912 and at no. 6 in the highly successful Second Torpids VIII of 1913. The family papers of G.G. Miln, who had been a member of Magdalen’s Second Torpids VIII in 1912, include a signed menu for the Dinner that was held in College on 19 February 1913 to celebrate that achievement (see above): the Second Torpids VIII had made six bumps and finished the races as the fifth placed crew in the 1^st (top) Division – only four places behind Magdalen’s First VIII, which had gone Head of the River in Torpids 1913 for the second year running. It is very unusual for a Second Boat to be placed so high – and the Captain’s Book remarked: “The effort was remarkable, and their triumph over New College I very welcome.” The menu has 68 signatories, some of whom were guests from elsewhere, and they include President Warren, “Edward” – i.e. The Prince of Wales – and his Tutor Henry Peter Hansell (1863–1935). But of the c.60 junior members of Magdalen who signed the menu, twelve would be killed in action: R.H.P. Howard; K.J. Campbell, who had stroked the First Torpids VIII of 1913; J.R. Platt; R.H. Hine-Haycock, who had rowed at no. 6 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1912; W.L. Vince, who had rowed at no. 7 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1912 and at Bow in the First Torpids VIII of 1913; A.J.B. Hudson, who had stroked the Second Torpids VIII of 1913; F.C. Walker; E.I. Powell; Miln, who had rowed at no. 5 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1912; E.T. Young; and G.B. Lockhart, who had rowed at no. 5 in the Second Torpids VIII of 1913. One of the attendees, J.D. Tyson, would be captured as a prisoner of war at Passchendaele in 1918 and was the brother of a 13^th Magdalen man killed in action – A.B. Tyson – who did not attend the dinner; and another of the signatories, Albert Victor Murray (1890–1967), a close friend of Campbell and K.C. Goodyear, who did not attend the dinner either, would be imprisoned during the war as a Conscientious Objector, albeit for one night only. After leaving Oxford with a BA, Cadenhead began training in order to become an architect. When making his will, he gave his address as 15, Inverleith Terrace, Edinburgh, where his parents were still living. When he applied for a commission, he said that he hoped to become an architect.

 

“Those who knew him best realised that he was one who would do good work in the world as his constitution matured. At Oxford he soon settled down into the life of his College, and became one of its best known and most popular members. Here as elsewhere everyone was struck by his unfailing cheerfulness and imperturbability, and these features in his character made for him many devoted friends; nothing could upset him, and he took everything – from the River to the Schools – in the same easy stride, and took them all well.”

 

Military and war service

Cadenhead joined the Oxford University Officers’ Training Corps during his first term at Magdalen and served for three years, gaining his Certificate ‘A’ in November 1913. On 23 July 1914 he applied for a Commission in the Special Reserve of Officers and on 15 August 1914 he was commissioned Second Lieutenant on probation in the 3^rd (Reserve) Battalion, the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, when it was stationed at Invergordon, Ross and Cromarty, on the east coast of Scotland. Cadenhead may have known of W.D. Nicholson, who was in the same Battalion, but by the time he disembarked in France on 10 March 1915, the latter had been dead for over two weeks. On 23 March 1913, Cadenhead joined ‘D’ Company in the Regiment’s 2^nd (Regular) Battalion, part of 81^st Brigade, 27^th Division, a unit that had returned from Poona, India, on 16 October 1914, landed in Devonport on 16 November 1914, and disembarked at Le Havre on 20 December 1914. He joined the Battalion as a replacement officer when the Battalion was out of the front line in the Dickebusch/Sint Eloois area, and he probably first saw action on 4 April, when the Battalion was in the trenches at Herenthage, east of Ypres and south of the Menin Road. It stayed in this area until 17 April, when it was in trenches near Sanctuary Wood, but by 21 April, when the Second Battle of Ypres was intensifying, it had been sent as reinforcement to the south of Zillebeke, in the area of Hill 60 (see A.H. Huth and T.E.G. Norton), where the situation was very serious and where the Battalion took many casualties on 23 and 24 April before being relieved on 25 April. Two days later the Battalion came back to the trenches near Hill 60 during a lull in the fighting, but on 30 April and 1 May 1915, it was further to the north-east, at Potijze, past the eastern suburbs of Ypres. Between 2 and 4 May the Battalion began in Zouave Wood, south of the Menin Road to the east of Hooge, and then marched further east, to the point where the front line crossed the Menin Road. Here it stayed until 10 May 1915, losing 80 men killed, wounded and missing during that period mainly because of heavy shelling. Cadenhead may have been one of these casualties, for on 26 May 1915 C.C.J. Webb (Clement Charles Julian Webb [1865–1954], diarist and Fellow of Magdalen 1889–1922) recorded in his diary that he had heard from Cadenhead’s father that George had been very slightly wounded and then killed in action “on his not long delayed return to the trenches”. But then, on 10 May 1915, the Germans subjected the British trenches to a particularly heavy artillery bombardment, especially north of the Menin Road near Hooge, threw gas bombs into the 2^nd Battalion’s trench that was occupied by the 2^nd Battalion, and then attacked in force. Although ‘D’ Company resisted with special tenacity and kept the Germans at bay, the gas took effect quickly. After the battle, Second Lieutenant Robert Downie Wylie (c.1884–1917; killed in action on 24 August 1917 to the north-west of Ypres while serving as a Captain in the same Battalion), the Commanding Officer of ‘D’ Company, who had joined the 3^rd (Reserve) Battalion of the Camerons a few days before Cadenhead, wrote a report on what happened next:

The deadly gas unfortunately did its work only too well[,] and George led the gassed people out of the fire trench by the communication trench. I myself remained in the fire trench being in command of the company holding it. The enemy shelled the communication trench very heavily but I know George got through it all right and also past the short open space into the wood as I saw his tall figure getting there, but the enemy dropped shell after shell into this wood and I am afraid he was killed there[;] we were unable to recover any of the bodies there as we had to evacuate our trench at night, but one or two of my men who were with George say he was blown up by a big shell and I am afraid now it is only too true. I have hoped against hope ever since but no news; so I am sorry to say I fear the worst, as had he been wounded he would have crawled into a dug-out and would have been found.

On 20 May 1915, Wylie wrote a letter to Cadenhead’s parents in which he said substantially the same, but named the wood as Zouave Wood – which means that Cadenhead, aged 22, was killed in action on the same day and in almost the same place as Campbell. For a time, there was uncertainty about Cadenhead’s fate, and according to one account, his remains were originally interred near Hooge. But whatever the truth of the matter, he now has no known grave.

His obituary in the Edinburgh Academy Chronicle reads:

He was a very great asset to the Battalion, always bright and cheery,’ writes his adjutant. ‘His calm manner too helped enormously in some very critical situations.’ And again we read in a letter from a brother officer: ‘His kindness and cheerfulness were a great help to us in the worst days at Ypres, and all his platoon loved and admired him.’ It is thus that we remember him at school, with his natural kindliness, keen sense of humour and cheerfulness, and with an inherited love of beauty and artistic perception that would surely have found expression in the profession of architecture for which he was preparing. He was one who could always be trusted to keep his head and to meet danger with a smile.

An Oxford contemporary wrote:

At Oxford, George Cadenhead soon settled down into the life of his College, and became one its best known and most popular members. Here as elsewhere everyone was struck by his unfailing cheerfulness and imperturbability, and these features in his character made for him many devoted friends; nothing could upset him, and he took everything – from the River to the Schools – in the same easy stride, and took them all well. From the first a really keen member of the OTC, he was rewarded for his ‘A’ certificate and his constant attention to military work with a hard-won stripe – difficult to earn in a college like Magdalen, where almost everyone is in the Corps. His English friends, in writing of his death, all remark on his equanimity and sound sense in every walk of life, and join in attributing to him those qualities which appeal to them most favourably in the Scot. He himself would have wished no other eulogy than that.

President Warren described him posthumously as “a typical Scotsman in name and physique […], he was a very useful member of the College, and liked by all”. Cadenhead is commemorated on Panels 38 and 40 of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial; he is also commemorated on the Memorial in St Columba’s Church, Albert St, Oxford (originally the Presbyterian Chaplaincy that was founded in 1908: the Church was dedicated in 1915). He died intestate, but on 6 November 1915 his estate was valued at £1,057 12s. 3d.

 

Bibliography

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

 

Printed sources:

George Cadenhead, Family of Cadenhead (Aberdeen: J. and J.P. Edmond and Spark, 1887), pp. vi–xix.

[Anon.], ‘The Late George Cadenhead’, The Edinburgh Academy Chronicle, 22, no. 9 (July 1915), p. 139.

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

[Anon.], ‘Mr Cadenhead’ [obituary], The Times, no. 44,488 (25 January 1927), p. 14.

Cave (1998), p. 23.

Kenneth Cadenhead, James Cadenhead FSA: Keeping his Memory Green (2003). No copy could be found in an English library.

Blandford-Baker (2008), pp. 83, 87, 92, 96–7, 105.

Archival sources:

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

OUA: UR 2/1/74.

OUA (DWM): C.C.J. Webb, Diaries, MS. Eng. misc. d. 1160.

WO95/2264.

WO339/26380.