Roll of Honour

Second Lieutenant George Arthur Smith-Masters (1914)

29 December 1894 – 19 August 1915

Entered College in Lent Term, 1914 intending to prepare for Holy Orders.  A member of the University Contingent of the Officers’ Training Corps. Gazetted Second Lieutenant from the Officer Training Corps on 21 August 1914 into the 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. Near midnight on the 19th August 1915 he went with a Sergeant to endeavour to locate shots which were endangering the lives of his men employed in digging trenches and was shot through the heart by a sniper.

His Colonel wrote to his mother:

One thing you will be proud to know is that he died doing his duty in an exceptionally brave manner, not in broad daylight, when it is easier to be brave, but in the dead of night, a mile behind the firing line.

(‘De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour, 1914-1918’, Volume 1, pg. 248)