Campden Voices 

by Paul R. Hughes, 20 July, 2006

In total 76 men are recorded on at least one memorial in the Chipping Campden. The memorial in St. Catharine’s Church records the names of seventeen men. Five of these men do not have their names recorded anywhere else in the town. One of these is Geoffrey Lynch-Staunton. He was not born in the town, he did not go to school in the town and he never lived in the town, so who was he and why is his name recorded on the memorial?

Geoffrey was born at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada on 17th July 1896, the first child and son of George Staunton Lynch-Staunton and his wife, Adelaide (nee Dewar). He attended Downside School at Stratton-on-the-Fosse, near Bath before being admitted to Merton College, Oxford. It was while he was being educated in England that he used to visit his great uncle, Colonel Richard Lynch-Staunton, in Chipping Campden. Richard and his wife, Maria Agnes Margaret Lynch-Staunton, lived at The Court House. Several vacations were spent in the town and he attended St. Catharine’s Church with his uncle and aunt. His mother and father were at home in Canada.
In early 1915 Geoffrey returned to Canada and was studying at Osgood Hall law school in Toronto. His studies were cut short when, like many of his fellow students, he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force to serve in the Great War. He arrived in France as a Lieutenant in June 1915. In December 1915 he applied to join the British Army and on 1st July 1916 he was transferred to the 13th Hussars. The Hussars arrived in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in January 1917 as part of the 7th Cavalry Brigade.
Geoffrey died on 5th March 1917 during his first engagement with the enemy; he was twenty years old. He fell at Lajj, on the River Tigris in a cavalry charge against entrenched Turks. It is said that he rode down into the Turk trench and walked his horse along it over the Turks. They took him prisoner, but his body was found the next day. They had dressed his wounds but decided that he would be a hindrance to carry along, so murdered him and took everything off him.
He was originally buried near Lajj but his grave was lost in later battles. His name is now recorded on the Basra Memorial in Iraq.
Geoffrey’s next of kin on his British Army service papers is recorded as Colonel Richard Lynch-Staunton, as his parents were still in Canada. It was Richard that acted on their behalf following Geoffrey’s death.

Colonel Richard Lynch-Staunton and his wife are both buried in St Catharine’s Churchyard in Chipping Campden. They both died in the 1920’s and have memorial stained glass windows in the Catholic Church. Their grave is in a very bad state of repair and it does not appear to have been visited by relatives for a very long time. It is interesting to note that Richard’s daughter, Frances Juanita “Dorothy” Lynch-Staunton married Paul Woodroffe, the stained glass artist, in 1907. They had four children. Richard also had a son called Bertram who became a priest.
In August 2005 I was offered a diary written in 1916 by Victor Lynch-Staunton. Victor was the younger brother of Geoffrey and was still at school when he wrote the diary. The diary records the military career of Geoffrey’s and also how Victor saw the war progressing. It was at this time that I searched a Canadian directory enquiries website and found the addresses of several Lynch-Staunton’s still living in Canada. I wrote to four of the addresses. All of the people I wrote to were related to Geoffrey. I even had a reply from Victor’s son, John, who was amazed to hear that I had his father’s diary. After exchanging several e-mails I decided to let him have the original diary. In return he sent me a fascinating article that he had written about Geoffrey. This article proved extremely helpful in writing this article.
There will be many people in Chipping Campden who will feel that Geoffrey is not a Campden man and that his name should not appear on any memorial in the town. He may have only been a visitor but he was a regular visitor and he was greatly loved by his uncle and many of the congregation of the Catholic Church would have known him well by 1917.

Sources
1. “2nd Lt. Geoffrey Lynch-Staunton” by John Lynch-Staunton
2. “The 13th Hussars in The Great War” by Mortimer Durand