James Edward Downes Lambert

• Matriculated: Did not matriculate

• Born: 1 April 1895

• Died: 2 November 1915

• Regiment: Northamptonshire Regiment

• Grave/Memorial: Fricourt, Point 110, Old Military Cemetery: H.8

Family background

b. 1 April 1895 at Pencombe Rectory, Herefordshire, as the second son (sixth child) of the Revd James Hiley Lambert (1846–1909) and Anne Sarah Lucy Lambert (née Downes) (1855–1947) (m. 1879). In summer 1914, his widowed mother was living at 39, The Grove, Bedford; she later moved to Pernpont, on the edge of the National Park at Brecon, Powys.

 

Parents and antecedents

Lambert’s father was an undergraduate at Magdalen (BA and MA 1879), and was ordained deacon in 1876 and priest in 1879. After a series of curacies in Scotland and Herefordshire, he served as a Minor Canon of Hereford Cathedral and Chaplain of Hereford Prison from 1882 to 1886. From 1886 to 1890 he was Rector of Leigh with Bransford, Worcestershire, and from 1890 to 1895, Rector of Pencombe and Perpetual Curate of Marston-Stannett, both in Herefordshire. He then moved to Canada where he was a clergyman in Saskatchewan from 1895 to 1900 and Rector of All Saints’ Church, Vernon, British Columbia, from 1900 until his death in 1909.

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Estelle Lucy (1881–1972 [Vernon, British Columbia, Canada]); later Fitzmaurice after her marriage (1903) to Raymond (later Colonel) Fitzmaurice (1877 [Killeshin, Laois, Ireland]–1962 [Vernon, British Columbia]; see below), one daughter;

(2) Mary Frances (1882–1901);

(3) Winifred Blanche (1884–1941 [Chicoutimi, Quebec, Canada]), later Spinks after her marriage (1903 [Vernon, British Columbia]) to [i] John Manley Barrington Spinks (1875 [Liverpool]–1944 [Davison, South Dakota, USA]), two children; then Schoch after her marriage (1918) to [ii] Nicholas Schoch (1891 [Switzerland]–1941), three sons, one daughter. John Manley Barrington Spinks later (date unknown) married Sadie E. Spinks (maiden name unknown; 1895–1972), two daughters.

(4) George Frederic R. Harold (middle name unknown; 1885–1965); married (1921 [Penticton, on the southern end of the Okanagan Lake, British Columbia, Canada]) Jennie Higgins (b. 1887–date of death unknown);

(5) Margaret Edburgha (1887–date of death unknown; Canada); later Bate after her marriage (1905) to Ernest Seddon Bate (1864–1943).

 

 

Raymond Fitzmaurice was the son of a Major (c.1820–1908 [Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland]) who, at the time of his death, was the sole survivor of the officers of the Queen’s County Rifles, a militia regiment, who had joined the Regiment at the start of the Crimean War), and the grandson of James Fitzmaurice RN who had served as a Midshipman under Nelson (promoted Lieutenant RN in 1807, wounded in 1809, retired as a Commander RN in 1844). Raymond came to Canada from Ireland in 1896 and worked on a ranch near Edmonton, Alberta, until June 1900, when he settled in Vernon, British Columbia, midway between Vancouver and Calgary. From 1902 to 1910 he worked there as an insurance broker for C.E. Costerton Ltd, but set up his own real estate business in 1911. Being married, he was not permitted to join up when war broke out so did not attest until 17 November 1915, but being well-known for his “geniality, excellent physique and great strength” was almost immediately commissioned Lieutenant in the 2^nd Regiment of Canadian Mounted Infantry (also known during its long history as Vernon’s Own Regiment and the 1^st Regiment of the British Columbia Horse). The Regiment, comprising 28 Officers and 605 Other Ranks, had sailed from Quebec on the SS Megantic on 12 June 1915 and after a period of training in Britain, disembarked in France in December 1915. On 1 January 1916, together with five other Regiments of Canadian Mounted Infantry, the 2^nd Regiment became part of the 8th Mounted Brigade in the 3^rd Canadian Division. The Canadian Corps, of which the 3^rd Canadian Division was a part, was heavily involved in the fighting in the Ypres Salient in 1915/16, and lost 8,430 of its members killed, wounded and missing during the Battle of Mount Sorrel (2–13 June 1916), a ridge to the east of Ypres between Hooge and Zwartelen. So as Fitzmaurice left Canada on 15 June 1916, it is almost certain that he was one of the many reinforcements who were sent from Canada to make good those terrible losses. He disembarked in France on 11 August 1916 and in November 1916 was slightly wounded during the final phase of the Battle of the Somme (1 July–18 November 1916); in 1917 he was promoted Captain and in August of that year, i.e. during the Third Battle of Ypres and probably during the phase of that costly battle that was known as the Second Battle of Langemarck (16–18 August), he was gassed. On 8 November 1918 he was Mentioned in Dispatches “for gallant and distinguished services in the field”, and on 2 April 1919 his Regiment was demobilized, having taken part in at least 20 battles and actions, and won 16 battle honours. It was back in Canada by 1920, where Fitzmaurice decided to stay in the Army. So in 1920 he helped with the amalgamation of the British Columbia Horse and the 2^nd Regiment of Canadian Mounted Regiment to form the British Columbia Mounted Rifles, of which he was second-in-command from 1920 to 1924 and Commanding Officer from 1924 to 1928. He was promoted Major in 1922 and Lieutenant-Colonel by April 1928, and he retired as a Colonel in 1932. From 1911 to c.1920, his real estate firm was managed by his only daughter Kathleen [“Kitty”] (1904–62), who then had a successful career in insurance and real estate in Vancouver and distinguished herself in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War Two. Fitzmaurice was also very active in civic affairs: in 1920 he became Mayor of Vernon; he was also a Mason and a lifelong member of the local Fish and Game Club.

John Manley Barrington Spinks was a member of the United Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd until 1915, when he appeared in Mitchell, Davison County, South Dakota, USA, where in 1918 he worked as a night clerk in the Widmann Hotel.

Nicholas Schoch also worked for the United Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd., as an agent.

Ernest Seddon Bate may have been a professional soldier.

 

Education

Lambert attended Vernon School, British Columbia, Canada, from c.1902 to 1909, and then Bedford School, in England, from 1909 to 1914, where he became a School Monitor and was in the first XV, the cricket and football first XIs, the gymnastics VIII and the running VIII. He was also a first-class fencer (sabre), and in his final year at Bedford School he took the second prize in the Public Schools fencing competition at Aldershot. In 1913, he came eighth in the entrance examination for the Royal Medical College (Woolwich), but turned the place down as he had decided instead to follow his father and become a clergyman. In 1913 Magdalen accepted him as a Commoner for October 1914 but he did not matriculate. On 25 August 1914 his mother explained this decision in a letter to President Warren: because Lambert had received a leaving Exhibition of £26 from Bedford School and been promised a grant of £30 by Magdalen, the family “now [felt] that he ought to do something for his Country …”.

 

“Thorough, cheerful and fearless, he became an excellent officer. He was sent forward on the night of November 1 with a party of bombers to cover an extension of our trenches. ‘It was a position of danger,’ his C0 wrote, ‘but he was always the first to volunteer for anything of the sort – the bravest of the brave.’”

 

War service

On 15 August 1914 Lambert applied for a Temporary Commission, and in September 1914 he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 6^th (Service) Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment, which had been formed at Northampton in the same month. He was promoted Lieutenant on 3 November, and after extensive training further south, on Salisbury Plain, he was with the Battalion when it disembarked in Le Havre on 26 July 1915 as part of the 54^th Brigade, in the 18^th Division. The Battalion finally went to the front in early September 1915: it was in Brigade reserve at Méaulte, just south of Albert, from 4 to 8 September, and then in the trenches near Morlancourt, about three miles south of Méaulte from 9 to 16 September, 25 to 30 September, 1 to 3 October, 11 to 19 October and 27 to 31 October. The Battalion returned to the same trench in early November 1915.

No major action was taking place when, on the evening of 1 November, the British detonated three mines and created three large craters in front of their positions. Lambert was selected as one of the two officers from his Battalion who were ordered to take a party of bombers into no-man’s-land and provide cover for the Battalion’s front line while the rest of the Battalion extended the parapet of their trench to the edge of one of the craters. While Lambert’s party were providing the cover, it came under heavy rifle fire, and Lambert ordered his Sergeant to take the men back to the British lines while he covered their withdrawal. The Sergeant obeyed the order, but when Lambert did not return, he went out to the place where they had parted, found no-one, and concluded that Lambert had got back to the lines some other way. The Battalion’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel George Eustace Ripley (1864–1916; died in London on 15 October 1916 of the effects of wounds received in action on the Somme on 14 July 1916) sent out three more search parties that night, but as no trace of Lambert was found, it was concluded that he had been made a prisoner of war. But at first light on the following morning, 2 November 1915, Lambert’s body was spotted on the edge of the crater: a sniper had shot him through the head, aged 20, one of the Battalion’s nine members to have been killed or wounded during the above action.

Colonel Ripley, who was much loved by his men, wrote to Lambert’s mother to recount the circumstances of “her most gallant son’s” “noble end”. “It was a position of danger”, he said, “but he was always the first to volunteer for anything of the sort”, and “we can only conclude that he got into the crater after the Serjeant [sic] left him, and was overcome by the fumes, and on coming to, early in the morning, had crawled out, and was immediately shot. [… his] death must have been instantaneous.” As the Battalion was due to be relieved on 2 November Colonel Ripley left an officer and some men behind to try and recover Lambert’s body during the night – which they managed to do without casualties. He concluded his letter by saying: “He was a splendid boy, the bravest of the brave, and a good boy too. He always attended Holy Communion when he could. May God and the knowledge that he has died so nobly for King and Country be your comfort.” Buried: Fricourt, Point 110, Old Military Cemetery (in the countryside to the south of Fricourt); Grave H.8; the inscription is “Eternal rest grant him o Lord, may light perpetual shine upon him” (a prayer from the Requiem Mass). He is commemorated in Bedford School Chapel. On 21 July 1915 he had made a will leaving everything to his mother: this amounted to £330 5s. 5d. (gross), of which £63 19s. 9d. was his pay, allowances and gratuity.

 

 

Bibliography

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

Printed sources:

[Anon.], ‘The Late Major Fitzmaurice’, Vernon News (Vernon, BC, Canada), no. 47 [888] (21 May 1908), p. 1.

[Anon.], ‘Lieutenant James Edward Downes Lambert’ [obituary], The Times, no. 41,008 (10 November 1915), p. 11.

[Anon.], ‘Col. Raymond Fitzmaurice Was Former Mayor’, Vernon News (Vernon, BC, Canada), no. 17 [4,677] (28 June 1962), p. 3.

[Anon.], ‘Fitzmaurice Funeral Rites Held Today’, Vernon News (Vernon, BC, Canada), no. 21 [4,681] (12 July 1962), p. 7.

[Anon.], ‘Vernon pioneer dies at age 91’, Vernon News (Vernon, BC, Canada), no. 83 [5,550] (22 February 1971), p. 11 [second section].

 

Archival sources:

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

MCA: PR 32/C/3/766-767 (President Warren’s War-Time Correspondence, Letters relating to J.E.D. Lambert [1915]).

WO95/2044.

WO339/13194.

 

On-line sources:

Ron Candy, ‘The British Columbia Dragoons: Vernon’s Own Regiment’, essay on-line: https://vernonmuseum.ca/ex_dragoons.html (accessed 5 October 2017).