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Auberon Thomas (Lord Lucas) HERBERT

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Surname: HERBERT

Forename(s): Auberon Thomas (Lord Lucas)

Place of Birth: Milton (Parish), Hampshire

Service No: ---

Rank: Captain

Regiment / Corps / Service: Royal Flying Corps

Battalion / Unit: 22nd Squadron

Division: ---

Age: 40

Date of Death: 1916-11-03

Awards: ---

CWGC Grave / Memorial Reference: VIII. C. 17.

CWGC Cemetery: H.A.C. CEMETERY, ECOUST-ST. MEIN

CWGC Memorial: ---

Non-CWGC Burial: ---

Local War Memorial: GRINDLETON, YORKSHIRE

Local War Memorial: SAWLEY, YORKSHIRE

Local War Memorial: WIGGLESWORTH, YORKSHIRE

Additional Information:

Auberon Thomas Herbert (born 25 May 1876) was the 8th Baron Lucas and 11th Baron Dingwall. He was the son of Hon. Auberon Edward William Molyneux and Lady Florence Amabell Herbert, née Cowper. Auberon, senior, was born at London, Middlesex and Florence at Brighton, Sussex.

1881 Denny Lodge, Hampshire Census: Whitley Ridge - Auberon T. Herbert, aged 4 years, born Milton Parish, Hampshire, son of Auberon E.W.M. and Florence A. Herbert.

1891 Bedford, Bedfordshire Census: 30, Kimbolton Road - Auberon T. Herbert, aged 14 years, born Milton, Hampshire. Scholar. [Auberon was boarding with Herbert L. Pocock, Clerk in Holy Orders & Language Master.]

1901 London Census: 4, St. James Square - A.T. Herbert, aged 24 years, born Ashley, Hampshire. [A.T. Herbert is described as the nephew of Arth. R. and Harriet Smith, who lived at no. 3, St. James Square.]

1911 London Census: 7, Cleveland Row S.W. - Auberon Thomas (Lord Lucas), aged 34 years, born Milton, Hampshire. Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Colonies.

British Army WW1 Medal Rolls Index Cards: Capt Auberon Thomas (Lord) Lucas, Hampshire Yeomanry & Royal Flying Corps. Theatre of War first served in: France. Correspondence: Lady Lucas c/o. Mrs. Bloomfield, Bell House, Dulwich Village, S.E.1.

Lord Lucas is commemorated on the Silsoe, Bedfordshire and Burley, Hampshire War Memorials.

Data Source: Craven’s Part in the Great War - original CPGW book entry

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Entry in West Yorkshire Pioneer Illustrated War Record: ---

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Captain Auberon Thomas (Lord Lucas) HERBERT

Captain Auberon Thomas (Lord Lucas) HERBERT

Regiment / Corps / Service Badge: Royal Flying Corps

Regiment / Corps / Service Badge: Royal Flying Corps

Data from Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914 - 1919 Records

Soldiers Died Data for Soldier Records

Surname: LUCAS

Forename(s): Aberon Thomas (Lord)

Born:

Residence:

Enlisted:

Number:

Rank: Capt

Regiment: Household Cavalry & Cavalry of the Line (incl. Ymry & Imp Camel Corps)

Battalion: Hampshire Yeomanry

Decorations:

Died Date: 03/11/16

Died How: Killed in action

Theatre of War:

Notes: (And R F C)

Data from Commonwealth War Graves Commission Records

CWGC Data for Soldier Records

Surname: HERBERT

Forename(s): Auberon Thomas

Country of Service: United Kingdom

Service Number:

Rank: Captain

Regiment: 22nd Sqdn. Royal Flying Corps and Hampshire Yeomanry (Carabiniers)

Unit:

Age: 40

Awards:

Died Date: 03/11/1916

Additional Information: 8th Baron Lucas and 11th Baron Dingwall. Son of the late Hon. Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert.

View Additional Text

View Additional Text For Soldier Records

‘IN MEMORIAM A.H’ by Maurice Baring

IN MEMORIAM A.H.

(Auberon Herbert, Captain Lord Lucas, R.F.C.
killed November 3, 1916)

THE wind had blown away the rain
That all day long had soaked the level plain.
Against the horizon's fiery wrack,
The sheds loomed black.
And higher, in their tumultuous concourse met,
The streaming clouds, shot-riddled banners, wet
With the flickering storm,
Drifted and smouldered, warm
With flashes sent
From the lower firmament.
And they concealed–
They only here and there through rifts revealed
A hidden sanctuary of fire and light,
A city of chrysolite.

We looked and laughed and wondered, and I said:
That orange sea, those oriflammes outspread
Were like the fanciful imaginings
That the young painter flings
Upon the canvas bold,
Such as the sage and the old
Make mock at, saying it could never be;
And you assented also, laughingly.
I wondered what they meant,
That flaming firmament,
Those clouds so grey so gold, so wet so warm,
So much of glory and so much of storm,
The end of the world, or the end
Of the war–remoter still to me and you, my friend.

Alas! it meant not this, it meant not that:
It meant that now the last time you and I
Should look at the golden sky,
And the dark fields large and flat,
And smell the evening weather,
And laugh and talk and wonder both together.

The last, last time. We nevermore should meet
In France or London street,
Or fields of home. The desolated space
Of life shall nevermore
Be what it was before.
No one shall take your place.
No other face
Can fill that empty frame.

There is no answer when we call your name.
We cannot hear your step upon the stair.
We turn to speak and find a vacant chair.
Something is broken which we cannot mend.
God has done more than take away a friend
In taking you; for all that we have left
Is bruised and irremediably bereft.
There is none like you. Yet not that alone
Do we bemoan;
But this; that you were greater than the rest,
And better than the best.

O liberal heart fast-rooted to the soil,
O lover of ancient freedom and proud toil,
Friend of the gipsies and all wandering song,
The forest's nursling and the favoured child
Of woodlands wild–
O brother to the birds and all things free,
Captain of liberty!
Deep in your heart the restless seed was sown;
The vagrant spirit fretted in your feet;
We wondered could you tarry long,
And brook for long the cramping street,
Or would you one day sail for shores unknown,
And shake from you the dust of towns, and spurn
The crowded market-place–and not return?
You found a sterner guide;
You heard the guns. Then, to their distant fire,
Your dreams were laid aside;
And on that day, you cast your heart's desire
Upon a burning pyre;
You gave your service to the exalted need,
Until at last from bondage freed,
At liberty to serve as you loved best,
You chose the noblest way. God did the rest.

So when the spring of the world shall shrive our stain,
After the winter of war,
When the poor world awakes to peace once more,
After such night of ravage and of rain,
You shall not come again.
You shall not come to taste the old spring weather,
To gallop through the soft untrampled heather,
To bathe and bake your body on the grass.
We shall be there, alas!
But not with you. When Spring shall wake the earth,
And quicken the scarred fields to the new birth,
Our grief shall grow. For what can Spring renew
More fiercely for us than the need of you?

That night I dreamt they sent for me and said
That you were missing, " missing, missing–dead ":
I cried when in the morning I awoke,
And all the world seemed shrouded in a cloak;
But when I saw the sun,
And knew another day had just begun,
I brushed the dream away, and quite forgot
The nightmare's ugly blot.
So was the dream forgot. The dream came true.
Before the night I knew
That you had flown away into the air
Forever. Then I cheated my despair.
I said
That you were safe–or wounded–but not dead.
Alas! I knew
Which was the false and true.

And after days of watching, days of lead,
There came the certain news that you were dead.
You had died fighting, fighting against odds,
Such as in war the gods
Æthereal dared when all the world was young;
Such fighting as blind Homer never sung,
Nor Hector nor Achilles never knew,
High in the empty blue.
High, high, above the clouds, against the setting sun,
The fight was fought, and your great task was done.

Of all your brave adventures this the last
The bravest was and best;
Meet ending to a long embattled past,
This swift, triumphant, fatal quest,
Crowned with the wreath that never perisheth,
And diadem of honourable death;
Swift Death aflame with offering supreme
And mighty sacrifice,
More than all mortal dream;
A soaring death, and near to Heaven's gate;
Beneath the very walls of Paradise.
Surely with soul elate,
You heard the destined bullet as you flew,
And surely your prophetic spirit knew
That you had well deserved that shining fate.

Here is no waste,
No burning Might-have-been,
No bitter after-taste,
None to censure, none to screen,
Nothing awry, nor anything misspent;
Only content, content beyond content,
Which hath not any room for betterment.

God, Who had made you valiant, strong and swift,
And maimed you with a bullet long ago,
And cleft your riotous ardour with a rift,
And checked your youth's tumultuous overflow,
Gave back your youth to you,
And packed in moments rare and few
Achievements manifold
And happiness untold,
And bade you spring to Death as to a bride,
In manhood's ripeness, power and pride,
And on your sandals the strong wings of youth.
He let you leave a name
To shine on the entablatures of truth,
Forever :
To sound forever in answering halls of fame.

For you soared onwards to that world which rags
Of clouds, like tattered flags,
Concealed; you reached the walls of chrysolite,
The mansions white;
And losing all, you gained the civic crown
Of that eternal town,
Wherein you passed a rightful citizen
Of the bright commonwealth ablaze beyond our ken.

Surely you found companions meet for you
In that high place;
You met there face to face
Those you had never known, but whom you knew;
Knights of the Table Round,
And all the very brave, the very true,
With chivalry crowned;
The captains rare,
Courteous and brave beyond our human air;
Those who had loved and suffered overmuch,
Now free from the world's touch.
And with them were the friends of yesterday,
Who went before and pointed you the way;
And in that place of freshness, light and rest,
Where Lancelot and Tristram vigil keep
Over their King's long sleep,
Surely they made a place for you,
Their long-expected guest,
Among the chosen few,
And welcomed you, their brother and their friend,
To that companionship which hath no end.

And in the portals of the sacred hall
You hear the trumpet's call,
At dawn upon the silvery battlement,
Re-echo through the deep
And bid the sons of God to rise from sleep,
And with a shout to hail
The sunrise on the city of the Grail:
The music that proud Lucifer in Hell
Missed more than all the joys that he forwent.
You hear the solemn bell
At vespers, when the oriflammes are furled;
And then you know that somewhere in the world,
That shines far-off beneath you like a gem,
They think of you, and when you think of them
You know that they will wipe away their tears,
And cast aside their fears;
That they will have it so,
And in no otherwise;
That it is well with them because they know,
With faithful eyes,
Fixed forward and turned upwards to the skies,
That it is well with you,
Among the chosen few,
Among the very brave, the very true.

England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966

1917

baron
LUCAS right honourable Auberon Thomas of Wrest Park Ampthill Bedfordshire captain His Majesty’s Army died 3 November 1916 Probate London 5 January to right honourable Nan Ino baroness Lucas spinster. Effects £100,000.

Grindleton War Memorial – Biographical Notes by Shirley Penman

AUBERON HERBERT (LORD LUCAS), son of Auberon Edward William Molyneux Herbert. (Hon) and Lady Florence Amabel nee Cowper married 9-8-1871 St. James the Great, Silsoe, Bedfordshire.

Died when his aircraft, through enemy fire or mechanical breakdown, came down whilst flying over Haplincourt. His body was not recovered until his grave was discovered after the Armistice when he was reinterred at H.A.C. Cemetery in France. He held the titles of 9th Baron Lucas of Crudwell and 5th Baron Dingwall, both of which could pass through male and female lines, therefore his sister, Nan Ino Cooper, became 10th Baroness Lucas and 6th Lady Dingwall upon his death. Auberon had a career in Parliamentary office and sat in the House of Lords; being a friend of no less than Winston S. Churchill. Held a captaincy in the Hampshire Yeomanry and had fought in 2nd Boer War where he received a leg wound which necessitated the amputation of the leg below the knee when he arrived back in England; this did not stop him from gaining his pilot’s license and flying out from Malta on sorties before returning to England and thence to the front line.

Commemorated on:

Balliol College War Memorial Book, Vol.1.
Bedford Grammar School Memorial
Books of Remembrance, House of Lords
Burley, Hampshire Memorial
Grindleton Memorial
Recording Angel Statue, Westminster Hall
Royal Gallery Memorial, House of Lords
St. James the Great, Silsoe Memorial
Sawley Memorial
Statue, Blackrod’s Garden, House of Lords
Wigglesworth Memorial

View Additional Image(s)

Additional Photo(s) For Soldier Records

Wrest Mansion, Silsoe, Bedfordshire

Wrest Mansion, Silsoe, Bedfordshire

The mansion was once owned by Auberon Thomas Herbert (Lord Lucas). During the Great War it became a military hospital

Kindly supplied by Shirley Penman, Clitheroe

Obituary (unknown source)

Obituary (unknown source)

Kindly supplied by Shirley Penman, Clitheroe

View Craven Herald Articles

View Craven Herald Articles

Craven Herald and Wensleydale Standard Logo

08 December 1916

CRAVEN AND THE WAR– THE LATE LORD LUCAS

The news of the death of Lord Lucas, on active service in France, has been received by the members of the Ribblesdale Buckhounds with the deepest sorrow and sympathy for relatives and friends. An enthusiastic and generous supporter of the Pack from its foundation, Lord Lucas gave his friend and neighbour, Lord Ribblesdale, all the support and help in his power. In the times before the War, of such days as he could spare from the duties of the office which he filled with such advantage to agriculture, many were spent in the Ribble Valley. In the hunting season, whenever in residence at Sawley or Wigglesworth, he was absent from no meet. His knowledge of the science of hunting, his horsemanship, his unaffected delight in a gallop over a stiff country, were in themselves a pleasure to those who shared with him the joys of a good run.

He was a noble, chivalrous, courteous gentleman. In Ribblesdale, as elsewhere, not only among those who follow hounds, but, even more among his tenantry and personal friends, will his name be cherished and his memory kept green.

The Hunt has also to lament the loss of Lord Lucas’ kinsmen, Captain the Hon. Julian Grenfell, and the Hon. William Grenfell, who, like himself, fell in action.

View West Yorkshire Pioneer Articles

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West Yorkshire Pioneer Logo

15 December 1916

THE LATE LORD LUCAS

The news of the death of Lord Lucas, on active service in France, has been received by the members of the Ribblesdale Buck Hounds with the deepest sorrow, and sympathy for his relatives and friends. An enthusiastic and generous supporter of the pack from its foundation, Lord Lucas gave his friend and neighbour, Lord Ribblesdale, all the support and help in his power. In the times before the war, of such days as he could spare from the duties of the office which he filled with such advantage to agriculture, many were spent in the Ribble Valley.

In the hunting season, whenever in residence at Sawley, or Wigglesworth, he was absent from no meet. His knowledge of the science of hunting, his horsemanship, his unaffected delight in a gallop over a stiff country, were in themselves a pleasure to those who shared with him the joys of a good run. He was a noble, chivalrous, courteous gentleman. In Ribblesdale, as elsewhere, not only among those who follow the hounds, but even more among his tenantry and personal friends, will his name be cherished, and his memory kept green.

The hunt has also to lament the loss of Lord Lucas’s kinsman, Captain the Hon. Julian Grenfell, and the Hon. William Grenfell, who, like himself, fell in action.

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