Newton-le-Willows and Earlestown War Memorial

In Memory of

Major Hugh Crawford Cavendish

’B’ Bty. 87th Bde., Royal Field Artillery
Killed in Action 1st August 1916 Age 35

Major Hugh Crawford Cavendish does not appear to have a direct connection with Newton-le-Willows and Earlestown. His connection is through his youngest sister May, who was married to Captain Carlton Collingwood, the assistant manager of the Vulcan Foundry. Major Cavendish and Captain Collingwood were killed a week apart on the battlefields of the Somme.

Major Cavendish is buried at Flatiron Copse Cemetery, which is ten kilometres east of Albert. As he is in Plot VIII (Row C Grave 2), almost certainly his body will have been moved to this cemetery from one of the many smaller ones in the area after the Armistice.

He was born in 1881 and was the second son of the late Mr. Alex Cavendish and of Mrs. Joanna M. C. Cavendish, of Finchampstead, Berkshire. Educated at Bedford, he was given his commission on passing out of Woolwich in November 1899. He served in the South African War, and had the Queen’s Medal with two clasps. He married, in 1908, Marjory Philippa, the second daughter of the late Mr. C. E. A. George and Mrs. George, of Fleet House, near Weymouth. His death left a widow and a daughter. The CWGC website gives his wife as being Marjory Philippa Mercer, of Upper Chilland House, Winchester, so she may have remarried late in, or shortly after the end of the war.

In October 1914, he became Major, and went out to Belgium with the 7th Division. He was wounded at the first battle of Ypres, and came home and formed a battery in one of the new armies. Major Cavendish went to the front with them in July 1915, and commanded this battery until the time of his death.