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Thanks to "Woose" a contributor to Find-a-Grave - his younger brother whose name can be found on the Helles Memorial along with that of my great-uncle and they were both killed in action on the same day.


Second Lieutenant Gerald Thornton Prickard

Regiment: South Wales Borderers 3rd Battalion.
Secondary Regiment: attd. 1st Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers
Died: 4th June 1915
Age: 30 years old

Gerald and his twin brother Godfrey were born in Disserth, Wales on the 8th November 1884. They were the youngest sons of the Reverend William Edward Prickard and Maria Georgiana Prickard (née Morris), of Dderw, Rhayader, Radnorshire. His parents had married in April 1865. The twins had three older brothers, Harry, Arthur and Thomas and five older sisters, Mary, Emily, Gertrude, Camilla, and Margaret. In 1891 the family lived in Woburn, Bedfordshire where their father was a Minister as well as a Magistrate. The family employed four servants.

Gerald went to Marlborough College on a Foundation Scholarship in 1898 and left in 1902. He then left England to work in the shipping industry in South Africa. When war broke out, he was at home with his family, convalescing from a serious illness he had contracted in South Africa. As soon as he could obtain a Doctor's consent, he volunteered and applied for a commission. On the 8th November 1914 he was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant on probation and posted to the South Wales Borderers quartered at Pembroke Dock. Although initially attached to this regiment he was then moved to the 1st Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers. They were part of the 29th Division, a hard core of regular battalions recalled to Britain from around the Empire.

On the 16th March 1915 Gerald set sail from Avonmouth for Alexandria and the following month they sailed for Mudros. Arriving on HMS Cornwallis, the Battalion landed under heavy fire at V Beach, Cape Helles in Gallipoli sustaining heavy casualties. Having suffered so many losses it was temporarily merged with the 1st Royal Munster Fusiliers to form a composite Battalion. It was three weeks before it resumed its' own identity.

Gerald was killed on the 4th June 1915. A fellow Officer wrote: "He was ordered to lead his platoon against a strong Turkish trench, afterwards known as Kangaroo Fort, which he did with great gallantry and succeeded in taking it, but in consequence of a murderous fire from machine guns fixed in a neighbouring trench he was unable to hold. Only four men of his platoon returned to our lines, of which he was not one."

His body was never recovered and so Gerald is commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the Helles Memorial.

He is also commemorated in the following locations:
On the war memorials at Rhayader and Marlborough College.
Roll of Honour South Wales Borderers.

His older brother Captain Harry Seddon Prickard served in the Boer War but died of enteric fever on the 12th May 1900. He is buried in President Brand Cemetery in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

His twin brother Godfrey was also at home when war broke out. He was a Superintendent in the Punjab Police. The India Office refused his request for leave to take part in the war and he was ordered to return at once to India.