Roll of Honour

Lieutenant Robert de Bedick Saunderson (1910)

21 September 1891 – 18 October 1917

Entered College in Michaelmas Term, 1910. A member of the 1st Association Football XI, 1912 – 1913. B.A., 1913. A member of the University Contingent of the Officers’ Training Corps. Assistant Master, St. Peter’s Prep. School, Seaford, 1914. Assistant Commissioner in the Gold Coast Service.

Gazetted as Lieutenant in the West African Frontier Force. Took part in the East and West African Campaigns. Killed in action at Lukuledi Mission on the 18th October 1917.

His Commanding Officer wrote to his mother:

He died leading his men in a most gallant charge against the enemy’s entrenched position, and was shot within a few feet of a thorn obstacle which the enemy had erected a few years in from of his trenched. It was a most gallant action, and if only your son had survived I would have brought his name before the G.O.C for a prompt reward for gallantry in the field… Your son had endeared himself to us all by his bright and cheery disposition, and, in addition to the loss the regiment has sustained in so gallant an officer, we all mourn the loss of a friend.

(‘De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, 1914-1924’, Volume 4, pg. 178)