Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1915, Second Lieutenant Patricius George Chaworth-Musters M.C., 1st Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps, died from the effects of wounds received several days earlier during the fighting at La Bassee.

One of seven children of a magistrate, he was educated at Rugby School, and went on to attend the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps in October of 1907, and saw service in Egypt.

In September of 1914 he was wounded by shrapnel at the Battle of Villers Cotterets during the retreat from Mons, and was sent home to England to recover. He soon returned to active service in France, and in early January was hit by a shell at La Bassee, from where he was taken to the No. 1 Casualty Clearing Station, which was at that time located at Bethune. His injuries were so severe his right arm had to be amputated, but a few days later he died of blood poisoning and is buried in the Bethune town cemetery.

He was posthumously awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry, as were four of his brothers, another being awarded the Distinguished Service Order – two of those brothers also died in the Great War. (His youngest brother, too young for the war, later worked as British Vice-Consul in Norway and was recruited to the Special Operations Executive when the Germans invaded in 1940, employed by the Norwegian Government in exile to interrogate escapees from Norway.)

Patricius, from Annesley Park in Nottinghamshire, was 26 years old.