Coming up to a year since the first opening of St Andrew’s Study Centre we share the joy of the snowdrops this year in the churchyard. Some of the oldest and most significant graves are in this area of the churchyard including Old Bradfieldians and former staff. We remember one of them here Eustace Richard Alan Calthrop Cox whose stone cross on his grave appears in the picture above front left.

Captain Eustace Richard Alan Calthorp Cox M.C. (1901-1906) died in hospital from illness contracted at the front on 18 March 1917.

Eustace was the second son of Rev and Mrs Cox from Dartington Parsonage and one of seven brothers, five of whom served in the First World War. Born at Lynton on 26 May 1887, he was educated at King’s College Choir School in Cambridge where he was a chorister, at Ellerslie in North Devon and at Bradfield College arriving on Jan 17th, 1901, where he was Captain of the Cricket XI in 1906, a Prefect and a keen member of the cadet corps.

On leaving school in August 1906, he went to the Argentine but returning to England soon after the outbreak of the war, he obtained a commission in the Devonshire Regiment in December 1914, going to the front in the following March and was gazetted as Captain of the 3rd Devonshire Regiment in June 1915. In the spring of 1916, he received and appointment on the Staff and was awarded the Military Cross. Returning to England in November 1916 on an appointment as Brigade-Major, he was at work training his brigade up to the very moment that his division left for the front, when he was sent to hospital where he died.

His obituary in the Bradfield Chronicle reads: “Captain Cox was twice Mentioned in Despatches and was equally beloved by his brother officers and his men. In January 1916, he married Gertrude Agnes Traill. A no mean opponent at polo and lawn tennis, he was also a good shot and a fine fisherman. One of his Generals write of him: - “He was a splendid officer and the best of comrades and to me he was such a help and a real loyal friend…his coolness in danger and his patience and gallantry set a fine example to all the brigade.” He was buried on March 22nd at Bradfield, the first part of the service being held in the College Chapel and the College OTC attending.

Eustace is one of 5 casualties recorded at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to be in the Bradfield (St Andrew) churchyard. We remember him today.