George King ["Moly"] Molineux

• Matriculated: 1907

• Born: 15 April 1887

• Died: 8 May 1915

• Regiment: Northumberland Fusiliers

• Grave/Memorial: Ypres Menin Gate Memorial: Panels 8 and 12

Family background

b. 15 April 1887 at “Meads”, 44, Carlisle Rd, Eastbourne, Sussex, as the elder son (of five children) of Major Harold Parminter Molineux, JP (1850–1923), and Rosa Eugénie Katherine Molineux (née King) (1860–1936) ( 1881). At the time of the 1891 and 1901 Censuses the family was living at 44, Carlisle Rd, Eastbourne, with four and six domestic servants respectively; they also lived at “The Cottage”, Isfield Place, near Uckfield, Sussex; and later at “Mornington”, Buxton Rd, Eastbourne, Sussex.

 

Parents and antecedents

Molineux’s father was an officer in the Essex Regiment from 1868 to 1883, ending his career as a Major. From 11 October 1881 until his retirement he was Adjutant to the 4^th Volunteer Battalion of the Essex Regiment and after his retirement, when he worked in the family bank (Molineux, Whitfield & Co., established at Lewes, Sussex, in 1789), he served in the 1^st Volunteer (Brighton) Battalion of the Sussex Regiment. In 1896, the family bank merged with 13 others to form Barclays Bank.

Molineux’s mother was the second daughter of Henry King, JP, Isfield Place, near Uckfield, Sussex, a landowner and barrister.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Dorothy Eugénie (1881–1936);
(2) Katherine Augusta (1883–1971); later Sulivan after her marriage (1910) to Lieutenant-Commander (later Commander) Harold Ernest Sulivan, DSO, RN (1876–1946);
(3) Annie Rosa (1885–1954);
(4) Henry Gisborne King (1891–1966); married (1923) Audrey Winifred Mary Bridge (née Anderson) (1891–1965), the widow (m. 1917) of John Ethelred Maryles Bridge (1864–1917) (near Esquimqalt, British Columbia, Canada), one son.

Throughout the first decade of the twentieth century Katherine’s husband, Lieutenant-Commander Sulivan, commanded destroyers, and by the time of the Battle of Jutland (31 May–1 June 1916) he had been promoted Commander, given command of the ‘M’ Class destroyer leader HMS Kempenfelt (1915; scrapped 1921) and become the Officer Commanding the second half-flotilla of the 11^th Destroyer Flotilla, which consisted of ten destroyers).

 

 

He was awarded the DSO for his part in the Battle of Jutland and his cit- ation reads: “As second in command of the flotilla he manoeuvred his half very ably during the daytime, and at night, when ‘Castor’ [a light cruiser (1915; decommissioned 1935)], which acted as the Flagship of the 11^th Flotilla under Commodore [later Vice-Admiral] James Rose Price Hawkesley [(1871–1935)] could make no signals owing to damage by gunfire, he very ably turned his half-flotilla and kept clear of the first half-flotilla manoeuvring.” He was promoted Captain RN on 30 June 1917 and given command of the destroyer depot ship HMS Woolwich (1912; sold in 1926), and in June 1921 he was transferred to the command of the light cruiser HMS Curlew (1917; sunk by German bombers on 26 May 1940 in Lavangsfjord, Ofotfjord, near Narvik).

Henry Gisborne King (1891–1949) was educated at Radley College, and when he left in 1909 he joined Barclays Bank (which, since 1896, included the Molineux family bank). He left Barclays to join the Royal Navy and was gazetted Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 24 August 1912. But on 4 July 1913, he had his name removed from the Navy List. Shortly after the outbreak of war he joined the 18^th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers (1^st Public Schools) as a Private, but on 25 November 1914, he was gazetted Temporary Second Lieutenant in the 12^th (Service) Battalion (1^st South Down) of the Royal Sussex Regiment, and was promoted Lieutenant on 2 August 1915. On 6 March 1916 he landed in Le Havre with the 12^th Battalion as part of the 116^th Brigade in the 36^th Division, but after being wounded later in the year, he resigned his commission. Henry Gisborne was a keen ornithologist and published two pamphlets on the birds of the Palaearctic: A List of European Birds, Including all those found in the Western Palæarctic Area, 853 Species (1905, reprinted 1966); and A Catalogue of Birds, giving their Distribution in the Western Portion of the Palæarctic Region (1930).

Henry’s wife Audrey Bridge was the daughter of a solicitor, Maurice Chapman Anderson (b. 1851in Ceylon, d. 1933).

 

Education

From c.1894 to 1901, Molineux attended Ascham St Vincent’s Preparatory School, Eastbourne, Sussex (1888–1939; cf. G.H. Morrison); he then attended Winchester College from 1901 to 1906. He was in the School 1^st cricket XI (slow bowler) and played against the MCC at Lords’ in 1906 (cf. M.K. Mackenzie). He was a House Prefect (January–July 1905) and then a Commoner Prefect (September 1905–06) and Captain of the Commoner VI (1904–05) which played Winchester’s particular brand of six-a-side football known as “our game”. He also played as centre-half in the Association Football 1^st XI (1906) and won at throwing the hammer and putting the shot (1906).

Molineux matriculated at Magdalen as a Commoner on 22 January 1907, having passed Responsions in Michaelmas Term 1906. He passed the two parts of the First Public Examination in October and Michaelmas Term 1907 and then began to read for a Pass Degree, probably in Law. But in Michaelmas Term 1908 he passed only Group B4 (Law) and after that he left without taking a degree. During his time at Magdalen, he played university-level cricket, football and rugby, and cricket for the Gentlemen of England at Eastbourne (twice). He was a member of the MCC and the Oxford Harlequins and he was also a first-rate shot, rider and fisherman, and a keen naturalist, who devoted “much of his leisure […] to the study of natural life”. He was a member of the United Services Club, Pall Mall. President Warren said of him posthumously that he was “of fine physique, and a good cricketer”, and thus “well suited for his father’s profession”.

 

 

“The obituary list of prominent cricketers killed in the war is an appallingly long one and very sad reading, but it affords a wonderful testimony to the part played by first-class cricketers in the war. Very many of all kinds and ages of past players, great players of the last few years and others who had not reached their prime, have given their lives for the Empire.”

 

Military and war service

On 11 December 1909 Molineux passed from the Special Reserve Battalion, the South Staffordshire Regiment, into the Regular Army (2^nd [Regular] Battalion, the Northumberland Fusiliers) as Second Lieutenant (gazetted Lieutenant 1 November 1913). In August 1914, when his Battalion was stationed at Sabathu, Northern India, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Lord Hardinge of Penshurst (1858–1944), Governor-General and Viceroy of India (1910–16) (cf. P.R. Hardinge), but he resigned the post to rejoin his Battalion when it was ordered to sail to France in November 1914. It left India on 20 November 1914, reached Britain on 22 December, and after resting in Winchester it marched to Southampton on 16 January 1915, the day when Molineux was promoted Temporary Captain in ‘B’ Company.

The 2^nd Battalion, consisting of 25 officers and 970 ORs (Other Ranks), disembarked at Le Havre on 18 January 1915 as part of the 84^th Brigade in the 28^th Division (cf. K.C. Goodyear), and arrived by train at Hazebrouck in Northern France close to the border with Belgium on the following day. From then until 1 February, when it marched to Vlamertinghe, just west of Ypres in Belgium, the Battalion trained and practised route-marching in the Strazeele area. On 2 February it took over front-line trenches to the south and south-east of Zillebeke village: these were between 30 and 150 yards away from the old German front line and needed extensive repair, but no picks and shovels were available on the Battalion’s first night. On 3 February the Battalion was shelled for the first time and suffered its first casualties; from 4 to 6 and 8 to 10 February it was in support at Tuilerie. It was in the trenches again from 6 to 8 and 10 to 12 February and then in Reserve south-west of Vlamertinghe until 14 February.

From 14 to 19 February the Battalion was in action in the front line east of Ypres and on 20 February 180 men from ‘A’, ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies were detailed to retake lost trenches at La Chapelle Farm: so at 12.30 hours they advanced in three lines and suffered very heavy casualties, losing 110 officers and ORs killed, wounded and missing; a second attack also failed and the GOC (General Officer Commanding) 84^th Brigade, Brigadier Fitzgerald Wintour (1861–1949), attributed the double failure not to the troops, but to the “difficult ground, full of holes, barred by broken trees, interspersed with dense undergrowth, over which the troops were called to advance on a dark night against a well-armed and strongly entrenched enemy”. At 05.00 hours on 21 February the Battalion was withdrawn to Kruisstraat, a southern suburb of Ypres, having suffered a total of 181 casualties killed, wounded and missing during its second spell in the trenches, and on 23 February it moved with the rest of the 84^th Brigade about eight miles southwards to Bailleul, just over the order in France. By this time, Molineux’s Battalion, which had landed in France just over a month previously with a complement of just under 1,000 officers and ORs, could muster only 14 officers and 510 ORs, of whom only 388 were available for front-line duty. Nevertheless, from 27 February to 3 March 1915, the 2nd Battalion, like the rest of 84^th Brigade, was in the front-line trenches near Dranoutre, south-west of Kemmel, facing the Messines–Wytschaete Ridge. It was withdrawn from the trenches on the night of 3/4 March and then in Reserve at Dranoutre until 7 March, and it returned to the trenches from about the night of 8 March until it was withdrawn to billets in Bailleul after dark on 12 March.

Although the 2^nd Battalion had had a relatively quiet time in the front line, on 12 March 1915 a planned attack by the 3^rd Division failed to materialize and it suffered casualties (1 officer and 29 ORs killed, wounded and missing), mainly due to friendly fire. It was back in billets from 24 to 28 March, and in the trenches from 19 to 24 March and 28 March to 1 April, after which it rested and trained at Locre, in Belgium, about seven miles south-west of Ypres, until 13 April. From 15 April until the night of 17 April the 2^nd Battalion was in the trenches east of Zonnebeke and involved in a minor action which, together with the effects of heavy shelling and mortaring, cost it 44 casualties killed and wounded. After five days of rest it returned to the trenches south of Zonnebeke on 23 April, i.e. the day after the start of the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April–25 May 1915), and was attacked on 24 April by the Germans using large quantities of poison gas for the first time (cf. G.U. Robins). The trenches were evacuated during the night of 3/4 May and the Battalion then spent 36 hours in hutments near the Vlamertinghe road just west of Ypres after suffering 207 casualties killed, wounded and missing between 21 April and 4 May. The 4th and 5th were spent in support trenches at Potijze, just to the east of Ypres, and 6 May was spent in support trenches north-east of Wieltje near Frezenberg (cf. G.S. Maclagan).

Here, on 8 May 1915, the first day of the Battle of Frezenberg, the Germans bombarded the entire 28^th Division with shrapnel from 05.30 hours onwards. The shelling got worse at 07.00 hours and at 08.30 hours an infantry assault was launched against 83^rd Brigade and was driven back. Although, at 10.00 hours, a second attack broke the shattered front of 83^rd Brigade and caused a very large number of casualties in both the 83^rd and the 84^th Brigades, the 2^nd Battalion held on to its positions even though the full force of the German artillery was then concentrated on them. But at 15.30 hours the 84^th Brigade was attacked by a Saxon Regiment which managed to out-flank some of it and, just after 18.00 hours, to take the trench that was defended by Molineux’s ‘B’ Company. The War Diary then records that at 19.00 hours a “sudden intense bombardment opened up on the position” and Molineux, aged 28, was probably mortally wounded by this barrage, for on the evening of 8 May he was last seen lying unconscious in his trench. He was posted missing on 11 May 1915 and his death was confirmed on 18 June 1916, one of 422 casualties killed, wounded and missing which the fighting at Frezenberg cost the 2^nd Battalion. Nine months later, on 10 February 1916, Molineux was mentioned in an article in The Times which concluded:

The obituary list [of prominent cricketers killed in the war] is an appallingly long one and very sad reading, but it affords a wonderful testimony to the part played by first-class cricketers in the war. Very many of all kinds and ages of past players, great players of the last few years and others who had not reached their prime, have given their lives for the Empire.

Molineux has no known grave. He is commemorated on Panels 8 and 12 of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial.

 

Bibliography

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

 

Printed sources

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

[Anon.], ‘The Greater Game: War Losses Among Cricket Players’, The Times, no. 41,086 (10 February 1916), p. 4.

Rendall et al., ii (1921), p. 124.

Sandilands, i (1938), pp. 69–99.

Clutterbuck, ii (2002), p. 329.

 

Archival sources

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

OUA: UR 2/1/60.

WO95/2277.

WO339/7499.