Roland Aubrey Leighton

A Lieutenant with the 7th Battalion, Roland died on 23 December 1915 at the age of 20. 

Roland was born at Saint John’s Wood, London, on 27 March 1895, a son of Robert and Marie Leighton. He was baptised at All saints’ Church, Saint John’s Wood, on 4 May 1895 and his family lived at 40 Abbey Road and this was still their home in 1911. By 1913 his parents were living at Heather Cliff, Lowestoft, and later lived at Chickeny Cottage, Warwick Road, Bishop’s Stortford. 

Roland was educated to London House Preparatory School, Saint John’s Wood, and he was awarded a scholarship to attend Uppingham School in 1909. At Uppingham Roland was a house captain, won many prizes, excelling in Classics, and was a junior officer in the school’s Officer Training Corps. It is said that he had ambitions to become the editor of a nation newspaper. On leaving Uppingham he had the opportunity to attend Oxford University, but, with the outbreak of the First World War, decided, instead, to apply for a commission in the armed forces. He is reputed to have been turned down by the Royal Navy and some branches of the Army, because of his eyesight, before getting a local G.P. to provide him with a certificate of general fitness. Roland was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Norfolk Regiment on 21 October 1914, to serve with the 4th Battalion.

An article in the Lowestoft Journal 24 October 1914, page 3, has:

MILITARY APPOINTMENTS

The list of military appointments published in the “London Gazette” on Wednesday last included the name of Mr. Roland A. Leighton, of Heather Cliff, Lowestoft, who is commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion Norfolk Regiment. By answering his country’s call in this present crisis, Mr. Leighton offers an example of the willing self-sacrifice which so many of our young men are exercising in relinquishing their academic ambitions for military duty. He has just completed a brilliant public school career at Uppingham, where he was captain of classics, and was on the point of entering to residence as a scholar at Merton College, Oxford, when war broke out. During the past few weeks Mr. Leighton has been active as recruiting sergeant in the Lowestoft district, under Colonel Cubitt.   

Roland was promoted to Lieutenant on 26 March 1915 and, during that month transferred to the Worcestershire Regiment and was posted to the 1/7th Battalion then preparing for posting to France, and landed with them at Boulogne on 31 March 1915.        

On 21 October 1915 Roland became acting Adjutant to the battalion while the battalion’s usual Adjutant was on leave. Roland was acting Adjutant with the 1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry, but returned to the 1/7th around two weeks before his death. 

During the night of 22-23 December, at Hebuterne, Roland’s platoon was to go out to repair wire. Before sending his men out to carry out the work Roland went out to inspect the wire. As he reached the wire he was shot in the stomach by a sniper, the bullet coming out of his back. The battalion war diary records that Sergeant Day, the battalion Medical Officer, and Captain Adam did excellent work bringing him in during heavy sniping. Sergeant M. Day, service number 543, was the Sergeant who brought in Roland. Sergeant Day was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal (London Gazette 21 June 1916) with the following citation:

For conspicuous gallantry. When his officer was severely wounded while examining wire he at once jumped over the parapet, ran to him and carried him in under fire.  

Roland died at a Casualty Clearing Station, at Louvencourt, on 23 December. His commanding officer, Colonel Harman, wrote:

He had a wonderful brain, very quick to grasp anything , and it was this that first appealed to me in him. He was a splendid soldier and very popular with all. I liked him so well that I made him my Acting Adjutant. 

A former Colonel wrote:

He was a splendid officer unsurpassed in his sense of duty and his capacity to command, particularly in one so young. The country and the army are poorer for the loss of a typical English gentleman and a very gallant soldier.

His company officer, Captain Adam, wrote:

His work was admired by us all. What confidence we all had in him: Nothing seemed too difficult for him to overcome, and he was always ready and anxious to do anything or go anywhere. The example he set his fellow officers will never be forgotten. 

Roland was the fiancé of Vera Brittain. He had been at school with Vera’s brother Edward. Vera’s books ‘Letters From a Lost Generation’ includes many letters written between Roland, Vera, her brother Edward, and two other friends, Geoffrey Thurlow and Victor Richardson. The film ‘Testament of Youth’ is based on Vera’s memoirs and features Roland.  

In 1916 a memoir of Roland, called the ‘Boy of my Heart’, was published anonymously in 1916. The book was actually written by Roland’s mother. 

There are numerous internet pages that make reference to Roland, his poetry, and his relationship with Vera Brittain.