Students at Hackforth and Hornby School researched this story for the Ribbon of Remembrance.
Do you know the story of Major Robert Henry Edmund Hutton-Squire? He was a World War 1 Hero. A person from our area: a soldier in the British Army who fought for our freedom.
Major Robert Hutton-Squire was born on the 10th October 1877, at Holtby Hall, his family home, in the Parish of Hornby, near Bedale.
As a child, Robert grew up at Holtby Hall with his older siblings, John and Emmeline; his younger siblings, Lucy and Eleanor; his father, Robert, a magistrate and militia army officer and Catherine, his mother. Very sadly, Lucy died in 1903, before the outbreak of World War 1. She was buried at St Andrews Church in Great Fencote, near Holtby Hall.
The family were looked after by their servants, including a housekeeper, a butler, a cook, a nursery maid and a gardener.
Robert Hutton-Squire did not go to his local school (Hackforth & Hornby C of E Primary School). In 1891, he was a boarding scholar at Charterhouse School with his brother, John. He was at school, away from his family.
After he left school, Robert trained as an engineer. In 1899, he was working in India, in Madras. In 1900, he joined the British Army in India, as an officer in the Royal Artillery. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1901. In 1906, his father died and was buried alongside his daughter in Great Fencote.
In 1911, Lieutenant Hutton-Squire returned to England, to Shoebury Barracks. This is recorded in the 1911 Census. A year later, he was promoted to Captain. On 14th July 1914, aged 39, he married Violet Hamilton in Edinburgh.
Robert Hutton-Squire fought in France and Belgium from September 1914. He was promoted to Major in 1915 and took part in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. In January 1917, Major Hutton-Squire was awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). Tragically, he was wounded near Arras and died in hospital in April 1917; five months later, on 29th September, his son, John was born. Major Hutton-Squire was buried in the Barlin Hospital Cemetery, in France. His friends remembered him as a good, kind, brave soldier.
As Robert Henry Edmund Hutton-Squire is remembered on the Memorial Plaque in St Mary’s Church, Hornby, the junior pupils at Hackforth and Hornby C of E School researched his life; created time lines and wrote a biography together, to celebrate his life. The pupils used census returns from 1881 to 1911; War Memorial Records from Charterhouse School; the Roll of Honour and maps to investigate his life. All the junior pupils hope you enjoyed reading their biography.
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Joseph Whitwell Bainbridge
Information submitted by Mrs Audrey Grundy. Joseph Whitell Bainbridge was born in 1896, his family ran Bainbridge’s Drapers Shop in Richmond Marketplace. Which occupied the building where Penley’s stands today. He was a territorial solider with the 4th battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment prior to the outbreak of the First World War and appears to have rejoined as a volunteer with the same battalion after the conflict started. Joseph arrived in France with the 4th battalion on 18 April 1915. His territorial regimental number (2370) was later revised to 200533. His war service led to the award of the 1915 Star, the British War medal and the Victory medal. Joseph’s older brother, Thomas Lawrence Bainbridge (also of the Yorkshire Regiment) was killed during the Battle of Arras on 23 April 1917. He had been awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the field.
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Captain Robert Murray
Robert Henry Murray lived with his family lived at West Cottage, Richmond. He was educated at Richmond Grammar School, and attended Selwyn College, Cambridge – rowing in the college boat at the Henley Regatta immediately before the outbreak of war. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Yorkshire Regiment on 8th October 1914, but was quickly promoted to Captain on the 3rd of December 1914. Attached to the Royal Munster Fusiliers, he was Mentioned in Despatches while at Gallipoli. Captain Murray was killed while attending to a wounded man of his Company on the fire-step of his trench. Captain Murray fell in action on 7th July 1916 and is buried at Philosophe British Cemetery, Mazingarbe, Departement du Pas-de-Calais.
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Edmund Staveley
Edmund was born around 1885. Little is known of Edmund’s early life. In 1901 the sixteen year old Edmund was living at Park House, the Gayle home of a local solicitor called Simon Willan. Edmund worked there as an office boy. By the beginning of the war Edmund was married to Agnes Waggett and had a son, William, and a daughter, Nora. By then Edmund was employed in helping to run Strands Farm at Simonstone near Hardraw. Edmund enlisted at Leyburn joining the 9th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. Private Edmund Staveley was killed on the 9th June 1917 during The Battle of Messines. He was 32 years old. He is buried in the Military Cemetery at Poperinge. Edmund’s brother, Lister, had already been killed the previous year during the Somme offensive.