Sir Geoffrey Langdon Keynes (1887 – 1982) - British surgeon and author.

 

Born on 25th March 1887 in Cambridge, UK, Geoffrey’s parents were John Neville Keynes, an economics lecturer at the University of Cambridge, and his wife, Florence Ada, nee Brown, a successful author and social reformer. Geoffrey was their third child - his older brother, who became an economist, was John Maynard Keynes, he had a sister - Margaret, who married the Nobel Prize–winning physiologist Archibald Hill.

Geoffrey was initially educated at Rugby School, where he became friends with the poet Rupert Brooke.  Geoffrey went  on to study at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he earned a first-class degree in the Natural Sciences Tripos. He was later made an honorary fellow of Pembroke College. Geoffrey then qualified for a scholarship to become a surgeon with the Royal College of Surgeons in London.   However, he delayed his medical studies to serve during the war, when he served as a Lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps.  

Geoffrey began his career as a physician during the First World War, before becoming a doctor at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, where he made notable innovations in the fields of blood transfusion and breast cancer surgery. 

After Rupert Brooke’s death n 1915, Geoffrey was appointed literary executor for Rupert's estate.

   

Colonel Richard Davies Garnons Williams (1856 – 1915) – Welsh Rugby International player and soldier

Born on 15th June 1856 in Hay, Breconshire, Wales, UK, Richard’s parents were Garnons Williams, an Anglican priest and Vicar of Brecon and Justice of the Peace for Breconshire, and his wife, and Catherine Frances Williams, nee Hort. 

Initially educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford, Richard went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1874. He represented Cambridge at rugby, but did not win a Blue. In 1881, Richard played in the first Wales international rugby union match.

Deciding to follow a military career Richard was accepted into the Royal Military College Sandhurst, and is also recorded as representing the Sandhurst rugby team. He completed his officer training in 1876, and was commissioned as a Sub-Lieutenant on 26 February. 

Richard was posted to the 38th Regiment of Foot, promoted Lieutenant on 17th January 1877, and a month later, on 17th February 1877, transferred to the 7th Regiment of Foot.

By February 1885 Richard had been promoted to Captain, and his unit had been renamed the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment).

In 1885, Richard married Alice Jessie Bircham on 8 January 1885 in Chelsea, London. They had a daughter, Frances Mary Barbara, born in 1890, and a son, Roger Fenton Garnons, born in 1891, who played first-class cricket and served in the army.  Barbara Gagnons Williams is one of the schoolchildren poets featured in a new book - "Poetry Written By School Pupils during the First World War" - on pages 58 - 61.  The book will shortly be available to purchase - see book list.

On 10th January 1887 Richard was appointed adjutant of the 4th Battalion of the regiment, the Militia unit of the regiment. He retired from the regular army on 4th May 1892. On 8th August 1894 he was commissioned Major in the 1st (Brecknockshire) Volunteer Battalion, South Wales Borderers, and on 1st  November 1895 was appointed Brigade Major for the South Wales Brigade of the Volunteer Force. On 12th July 1899 he was granted the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He resigned his Volunteer commission on 26 May 1906, retaining his rank and with permission to continue wearing his uniform.

Richard rejoined the British Army shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and was posted to his original regiment, joining the 12th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers as a Major on 26th September 1914.  He was promoted temporary Leutenant Colonel on 3rd October 1914, and transferred back to the South Wales Borderers to command the Brecknockshire Battalion.

Posted back to 12th Royal Fusiliers Richard was killed on 25th September 1915 while leading his Battalion at the Battle of Loos. He is commemorated on the Loos Memorial to the Missing.  At 59 years of age, he was the eldest of the 13 Wales International players to be killed during the First World War.

Sources: Find my Past, FreeBMD, Wikipedia 

http://www.abercamlais.com/lieutenant-colonel-richard-davies-garnons-williams/

Lou Phillips (1878 - 1916) – Welsh Rugby International and golfer

With thanks to John Daniel for finding this information for us 

Lou Phillips was a former Welsh rugby international who also won the Welsh Amateur Golfing Championship in 1907 and 1912

Lewis or Louis Augustus Phillips was born at Stow Hill, in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, on 24th February 1878.  His parents were Charles Phillips, a Cornmerchant, and his wife, Rose Phillips, nee Hancock. Lou had the following siblings: John Frederick Phillips, b.1874, Herbert Leonard Phillips, b. 1876 and Charles A. Phillips, b.1881.

Educated at Monmouth Grammar School, Lou went on to become an architect. In 1907 and again in 1912, Lou was Welsh Amateur golf champion. He was also runner-up for the Irish Amateur Open Championship in 1913, and in the following year he was beaten in the sixth round of The Amateur Championship. 

When the First World War started Lou enlisted in the 20th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, and, after refusing a commission, he served as a Sergeant. Posted to France with his unit on 16th  November 1915, on the night of 14th March 1916, while out with a wiring party, Lou was shot through the chest and killed near Cambrin, France. He is buried in Cambrin Churchyard Extension, Grave Reference:  L1 10B.

Note: The 20th Royal Fusiliers was one of four battalions of the regiment raised in 1914 by the Public Schools and University Men’s Force.

Sources: Information supplied by John Daniel, Find my Past, FreeBMD and Wikipedia

Sir John Reeve Brooke (1880-1937) - Staff Captain D.A.A.G. 1915-17, Vice-Chairman of the Electricity Commission, Principal Assistant Secretary, Ministry of Transport 1920-23; Secretary 1923-27

 

With thanks to Rupert Brooke Remembered Facebook Page for finding this information for us

John Reeve Brooke was born in London in 1880 – the birth being registered in the third quarter of that year.  His parents were John Reeve Brooke (1848-1932), a Barrister, and his wife, Charlotte Mary, nee Baldwin-Browne. John Reeve Brooke Senior was the son of the Reverend Richard England Brooke (1821-1900) and the brother of William Parker Brooke (1850-1910), Rupert Brooke’s father – the famous poet Rupert Brooke was seven years younger than his cousin John.    

Young John Reeve Brooke was educated at Haileybury College School in Hertfordshire before going on to study at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University.

On the 1911 Census we find John staying in Surrey and described as a Journalist.  He joined the National Health Insurance Commission in 1912 as secretary (assistant) to its head - Robert Morant - who had been given the unprecedented task of organising the registration and collection of insurance contributions from 15 million people. Morant also had to bring in agreements with doctors to implement a national system of general practitioners. The experience gained by Brooke working on the most ambitious Government project dependent on the collection of personal and other related information to date, would surely have had an impact on his approach to his  work for Fabian Ware.

Major General Sir Fabian Arthur Goulstone Ware, KCVO, KBE, CB, CMG.

During the First World War, Ware was too old to fight so instead he commanded a mobile Red Cross unit on the Western Front.  He was appalled at the number of casualties and his unit began to record all the graves they came across.   In 1915, this initiative was officially recognized by the British Government and was incorporated into the British Army as the “Graves Registration Commission”.

https://fascinatingfactsofww1.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-commonwealth-war-graves-commission.html

John worked with Major General Sir Fabian Ware from the early days of the Mobile Unit.  He joined the Unit on 2nd October 1914 and became the Unit’s Adjutant, or officer in charge of key elements of its personnel and financial administration. His role in the Mobile Unit, as well as recording much of the detail in the early surviving Unit Diaries, was that of administrator and financial manager. For example in a diary entry for Wednesday 16 December 1914 Brooke is recorded as having spent time sorting out longer term arrangements for the finances for the Unit with a Red Cross Official in Boulogne.

In common with the rest of the officers of the Mobile Unit, John was given a so called local rank (a temporary rank in the Army on the Western Front) in late February 1915 (Lieutenant) and then a formal Army commission as Captain at the end of September 1915, slightly ahead of the rest of the Commission with its transfer to the Army in October of that year.

In 1920, John married Dorothy Lamb (1887 – 1967) who worked for various British Government Departments during the First World War. 

John Reeve Brooke was knighted on 16th February 1928 - dubbed at Buckingham Palace. 

He died in 1937.

Original Source:  Post on Rupert Brooke Remembered Facebook Page:

https://www.facebook.com/rupertbrookepoet

Additional information from:

 Find my Past, FreeBMD,

https://warrecordsrevealed.com/2018/04/25/john-reeve-brooke-adjutant-of-the-red-cross-mobile-unit-with-fabian-ware-first-registrar-of-the-graves-registration-commission-and-first-cousin-of-rupert-brooke/

Obituary in the “Hampstead News” of 08 April 1937

Sir John Reeve Brooke (1880-1937)

Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/44681529/john-reeve-brooke

https://www.abdn.ac.uk/sll/disciplines/english/lion/ceremony.shtml

https://www.brown.edu/Research/Breaking_Ground/results.php?d=1&first=Dorothy&last=Lamb

Jack Warner, OBE (1895 - 1981) - British actor

 Jack Warner, OBE (born Horace John Waters; 24 October 1895 – 24 May 1981) was a British actor. He is closely associated with the role of PC George Dixon, which he played in the 1950 film The Blue Lamp and later in the television series Dixon of Dock Green from 1955 until 1976, but he was also for some years one of Britain's most popular film stars. 

Born Horace John Waters in Bromley-by-Bow, Poplar, London, UK on 24th October 1895, his parents were Edward William Waters, a master fulling maker and undertaker's warehouseman, and his wife, Maud Mary, nee Best.  Jack's sisters, Elsie and Doris Waters, became comediennes who usually performed as "Gert and Daisy”.

Educated at the Coopers' Company's Grammar School for Boys in Mile End, Jack went on to study automobile engineering at the Northampton Institute (now part of the City University, London) but being more practical than academic he left after a year to work at the repair facilities of F.W. Berwick and Company in Balham.

During the First World War, Jack served in France as a driver in the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 1918. He returned to England and the motor trade in 1919, driving hearses and occasionally racing cars at Brooklands, where he maintained and sometimes raced Henrietta Lister's Aston Martin. 

Jack became a professional entertainer in music hall and in radio shows. In 1933, Jack married company secretary Muriel Winifred ("Mollie"), daughter of independently wealthy Roberts Peters

By the early years of the Second World War, Jack had become nationally known and starred in a BBC radio comedy show.  He died in 1981 and his role of Dixon of Dock Green in the television series was held in such high esteem that officers from Paddington Green Police Station bore the coffin at his funeral.

Jack Benny (1894 – 1974) – American entertainer

Born Benjamin Kubelsky on 14th February 1894 in Chicago, he was the son of Meyer Kubelsky (1864–1946), who was from Poland, and his wife Emma Sachs Kubelsky (1869–1917), who was from Lithuania.  The family lived in Waukegan, an industrial suburb of Chicago, Illinois, USA.  Benny began studying the violin when he was six years old.  

However, he was a dreamer and poor at his school studies, and was expelled from high school.   In 1911, he began playing the violin in local vaudeville theaters.

Benny left show business briefly in 1917 to join the United States Navy during World War I, often entertaining fellow sailors with his violin playing. One evening, his violin performance was booed by the sailors, so with prompting from fellow sailor and actor Pat O'Brien, he ad-libbed his way out of the jam and left them laughing. He received more comedy spots in the revues and did well, earning a reputation as a comedian and musician.

HJack Benny's radio and television programmes, popular from 1932 until his death in 1974, were a major influence on the sitcom genre. Benny often portrayed his character as a miser who played his violin badly and ridiculously claimed to be 39 years of age, regardless of his actual age.

Jack Benny died on 26th December 1974. 

George Burns (1896 – 1996) – American comedian, actor, writer, and singer,

Born Nathan Birnbaum on 20th January 1896, in New York City, he was the ninth of 12 children born to Hadassah "Dorah" (née Bluth; 1857–1927) and Eliezer Birnbaum (1855–1903), known as Louis or Lippa.  

Drafted into the United States Army when the United States of America entered the First World War in 1917, he failed the physical examination because he was extremely nearsighted. By the early 1920s, he adopted the stage name "George Burns".

He met actress Gracie Allen in 1922 and they first performed together at the Hill Street Theatre in Newark, New Jersey, continued in small town vaudeville theaters and were married in Cleveland on 7th January 1926,

George Burns was one of the few entertainers whose careers successfully spanned vaudeville, radio, film and television.  

After a long and very successful career, George died on 9th March 1996.