Captain Herbert Frank Brownton Ryley

1st Battalion, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment

Died: 2nd November 1914
Age: 36

Herbert Frank Brownton Ryley, son of Major F Ryley, of Claremont Court, Jersey, was born 11th September, 1878. He entered [Victoria College] in 1889 and left at the end of the same year. Later he went to Rugby, and on leaving school went into the Army through the Militia, becoming Second Lieutenant in The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in 1899 and Captain in 1906. He served in Malta, Cyprus, Crete, Gibraltar, South Africa, Mauritius, and India, and came home to the Depot at Preston at the end of 1913.

He went out with the First Seven Divisions and was reported missing in the heavy fighting around Ypres on 2nd November, 1914. Later he was officially reported killed on that date.

(The above text appears in the Book of Remembrance of Victoria College published in 1920)

At the time of publication of the Book of Remembrance, Capt. Ryley was one of the very few entries who did not have a photograph. A photograph of him however is in the Rugby School Roll of Honour Book and is now reproduced here as an update to the original blog in 2016.

Also stated in the Rugby School Roll of Honour:

“He was reported as “Missing” in November, 1914, in the terrible fighting round Ypres. No official information was ever received, as the whole Battalion, except one Lieutenant and a hundred men, was annihilated. After a long interval, however, a brother Officer, repatriated from Switzerland, reported that on November 2nd Captain Ryley had received orders to try to capture a machine-gun and had gone off at once with ten men, and nothing more was ever seen or heard of any of them. The date of his death was, therefore, believed to be November 2nd, 1914.” 

Link to the Channel Islands Great War Study Group website:

http://www.greatwarci.net/honour/jersey/database/ryley-hfb-meningate.htm