Adrian Lancelot Hawes

A Lieutenant with the 52nd Battalion, Adrian died on 8th of October 1918 aged 26. 

Adrian was born at Aberdeen in 1893, a son of William Alfred and Jessie Farquharson Hawes. In 1901 his family lived at 397 London Road, Kirkley, and by 1911 they lived at 1 Pier Terrace. The family also had property at 22 Mount Street, Aberdeen. Adrian was at some point a pupil at Aberdeen Grammar School and he, along with his sister and brother, studied at the Saint Aubyn Musical Academy, Carlton Colville. Adrian was known to be an excellent violinist. In 1911 Adrian lodged at 125A Croydon Road, Anerley, Penge, and was a clerk for an export provision merchant (possibly Mortons for whom his father had been a manager).  

Adrian volunteered and enlisted in the Army in September 1914. He joined the Royal Fusiliers, service number PS/2828, and served with the 21st Battalion (4th Public Schools), arriving in France with the battalion on 14 November 1915. On 22 March 1916 he returned to England to attend an Officer Cadet unit. Adrian was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) on 7 July 1916. Adrian served with a Training Reserve Battalion. On 7 January 1918 he was promoted to Lieutenant. On 28 May 1918 he was attached to the Machine Gun Corps and by October 1918 he was serving with the 52nd Battalion. 

On 7 October 1918 the 52nd Battalion moved into positions and prepared to give covering fire to the advance of 57 and 63 Divisions the next day. The attack began on 8 October and 52 Battalion were called on to give covering fire including a response to the call, from the infantry, for a S.O.S. barrage. A note in the Aberdeen Evening Express, 23 October 1918 page 2, states that on that day Adrian was killed by shell fire while ‘fearlessly commanding his guns in the open in the action near Cambrai.’