Charles Godfrey Haggas Cutcliffe HYNE

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

1917

HYNE Charles Godfrey Haggas Cutcliffe of Heaton Lodge Bradford a lieutenant in the Irish Guards died 21 November 1916 at 22 Park-lane Middlesex while on active service Administration Wakefield 25 January to Charles John Cutliffe Wright Hyne gentleman. Effects £209 14s 6d.

1944

HYNE Charles John Cutcliffe Wright of Damside House Kettlewell Skipton Yorkshire died 10 March 1944 Probate Wakefield 25 October to Mildred Nancy Cutliffe Hyne spinster Donald Gardner Hopewell solicitor and Denis Anderton Brigg medical practitioner. Effects £17356 6s. 10d.

Bradford Grammar School in WW1

CHARLES GODFREY HAGGAS CUTCLIFFE HYNE

1898-1916 Aged 18

Lieutenant. 2nd Battalion Irish Guards, attached Trench Mortar Battery.

Charles Godfrey Hyne was the only son of Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne of Heaton Hall, Bradford and Damside House, Kettlewell. He was born in Bradford early in 1898. The family arrived in Bradford in 1868 when the Reverend Charles Wright Noble Hyne became vicar of Bierley. He sent his son Charles John to Bradford Grammar School, who later described it as ‘a beastly place’. He then went to Clare College, Cambridge, before becoming a ‘hack-writer’ and an adventurer. His literary career was transformed when it was suggested that he turn a minor character from one of his stories, Captain Kettle, into the subject of serialized stories. This character made Cutcliffe Hyne a well known novelist, who influenced Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’, and other of whose books are reckoned the superior of Conan Doyle’s non-Sherlock Holmes novels. In February 1897 he married ‘Elsie’ (Mary Elizabeth) Haggas, the daughter of a wealthy worsted manufacturer from Oakworth, and their only son Charles Godfrey was born early the next year.

In his works C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne expressed his ‘contempt for weaklings and whiners, and belief in hard work and the salutary effect of the school of hard knocks.’ This may give an insight into the up-bringing his son Godfrey received. Despite his father’s opinion of Bradford Grammar School, he went there from 1908 until 1911, from the ages of ten to thirteen. In Form Second Lower he was 15th of 30; in Second Classical Upper he came 27th of 32; in his final year, in Third Classical, his best subjects were English, History, Science and Latin, while he was near the bottom in Maths, Geography and Divinity. In September 1911, Godfrey went to Rugby School where he boarded in St. Hill’s house (now Michell’s). He played rugby football for his house and was seen as ‘good in the scrum’ - he won his only cap as a forward against Uppingham in 1915. In the O.T.C. he displayed his leadership qualities and was rapidly promoted, to Corporal, then to Second Lieutenant in May 1915. A school-fellow wrote:- ‘I know how proud we all were to be commanded by him. He got hold of us as few boys can of their fellows in a corps of that sort, and raised our House from the bottom to the top of the list in the competitions. There is not a man who has ever worked under him who will not feel his loss most acutely.’

From Rugby School Godfrey was commissioned into the 2nd Battalion Irish Guards in February 1916. He went to France in May, and was posted to No.2 Company in mid-July as the battalion prepared to move from Ypres to the Somme. At the end of August he was promoted to Lieutenant and attached to the Brigade of Guards Trench Mortar Battery. On 15th September he was supporting the battalion’s advance to the north-east of Ginchy. Seventeen out of twenty-five of his Trench Mortar crews were killed or wounded. He was fetching ammunition himself, as nobody else had managed to get through, when he was shot in the thigh by a sniper. He saved his guns, although the other mortars in the Battery were lost. He was evacuated back to London, to the Park Lane home of the Hon. Mrs. F. Guest, which was in use as a Military Hospital, and it was reported in the Bradford newspapers that he was ‘severely wounded.’ He died on 21st November, and his body was brought to Kettlewell where he was buried in the churchyard on the 25th with military honours. His Colonel wrote of him:- ’He was regarded with sincere affection by his brother Officers, and he always did his duty splendidly.’ Another officer wrote:- ‘He was truly an excellent fellow and as brave as a lion.’ A Sergeant in his Company, who was wounded the same day, said:- ‘He was as fearless and tactful as he was popular in the Regiment.’ The east window in Kettlewell Church is his memorial. He is also on the Memorial Lych Gate at St. John’s Church, Bierley, Bradford. His only sister ‘Nan’ lived at Kettlewell until her death in 1999.

Acknowledgements:

This photo is from an anonymously-compiled scrapbook of press-cuttings of young men from Bradford killed in the First World War, several of whom were at B.G.S. (Bradford Local Studies Library - my thanks to Jennie Kiff for bringing it to my notice). For C. J. Cutcliffe-Hyne, see (from which the quotation is taken) and < http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/ hyne.html> accessed 6-11-2016. The Hyne family history was researched using Ancestry.com. Charles’s years at B.G.S. were researched in the B.G.S. Annual Reports for 1909-1911—The Bradfordian stated he was at the School 1903-1911, but his first appearance is in the midsummer 1909 Report. I am very grateful to Rusty MacLean of Rugby School archives, and to Tim Day, of Machell’s house, for their kind assistance. The tributes to Charles Hyne are quoted from the Rugby School magazine. The description of his death features in both that publication and in Craven’s Part in the Great War (Skipton, 1919), 62. The 2/Irish Guards War Diary for 1916 is not available on Ancestry; Rudyard Kipling’s The Irish Guards in the Great War, edited and compiled from their diaries and papers. Vol. II The Second Battalion (London, 1923), can be consulted at accessed 7-11-2016; Hyne joined his battalion in May 1916, the account of which commences on p.74, Hyne’s wounding noted on p.108. The photo of the east window was taken by the author. The photo of This biography was researched and compiled by Nick Hooper, November 2016 ([email protected]).