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Pte. Leonard Norton "Dick" Gammidge
British Army 15th (Civil Service Rifles) Btn. London Regiment
(d.25th Sept 1915)
Leonard Gammidge of the 15th London County Civil Service Rifles was killed at Loos, on the 25th of September 1915.
Leonard Gammidge, better known by his family and friends as Dick, was at Haywardsfield from 1906-1910, and played for the School in the 2nd football team. After leaving Wycliffe he was articled to a London firm of land and estate agents, but joined the 15th Civil Service Rifles directly after the outbreak of war. This was one of the first of the Territorial Regiments to go to France, and Dick crossed with his battalion at the end of 1914. The Western Front in France and Flanders was not a health resort in 1915, nor, indeed, at any time, but during eight months' service the letters which Dick Gammidge wrote home were always cheery, with never a word of complaint.
He was killed in the advance of 25th of September 1915, during the fighting which resulted from the capture of Loos. Two battalions which were assaulting the German trenches needed a new supply of hand grenades. His own No. 6 plaÂtoon volunteered to do the work. It was necessary to carry the bombs to a zone 300 yards wide, swept by German rifle fire and machine guns, and out of the party of twenty-six men who started, only four had returned when night fell. Leonard Gammidge was one of the ten who were killed, but it is said that unless these bombs had reached the forward battalions for others came back to take them from those who fell - the position which the British had captured could never have been held. He was twenty-one years of age when he thus laid down his life for his comrades. (From 'Wycliffe in the War', 1923.)
