Major-General William Brook Purdon CB, OBE, DSO, MC. MiD was President of the QUB Services Club in 1948. Former student of RBAI and MCB. Read here an outline of his record in medicine, in war time, in rugby and as Northern Ireland Government Agent in London and President of London Irish RFC. He was born in Belfast 28/11/1881 and graduated in medicine at Queen’s College in 1906. On this day in 1914 Cdr Henry Peel Ritchie from HMS Goliath, was awarded the first Royal Navy Victoria Cross of WW1. In 1916, a lone German warplane appears in the skies over London and drops six bombs near Victoria Station. Ten casualties are reported. It is the first raid on the city by a fixed-wing aircraft; it won’t be the last. In today’s Roll – James Taylor, a Royal Artillery gunner from Ballymoney serving with a Maritime regiment and who most likely died at sea, is named on Portsmouth Naval Memorial. The war graves of two RAF men William Freeman from Ballycastle and Robert Irvine from Belfast are in Egypt and South Africa. See Roll for 1918 – Lily Hamilton’s remains are in Carnmoney Cemetery but lay in an unmarked grave for nearly 100 years. Nigel Henderson located it and the CWGC erected a headstone in 2018 – the only CWGC headstone for a VAD fatality in Northern Ireland. In today’s Veterans Roll see entry for Mabel Twist – referred to as “The smartest woman in the A.T.S. in Britain” so she married a Gunner from the 8th (Belfast)
Remembrance NI - Every day is a Remembrance Day 