Ashtead War Memorials - WWI - Lt Col William Evelyn Maples, OC 6th Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment

Ashtead War Memorials - WWI - Lt Col William Evelyn Maples
OC 6th Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment

William Maples, senior, [born ca 1844 at Wood Green, Middx.,] trained as a Solicitor and joined Maples Teesdale & Co, 6 Frederick’s Place, Old Jewry, which, in 1865, had opened an office devoted to the service of the Great Western Railway. His marriage to Elizabeth Jackson, from Scotland, was registered at Kensington 12/1875.

A third son, William E Maples, had been born in Paddington, 2 February 1880, and lived with his parents, William and Elizabeth Maples, at 38 Cambridge Terrace, NW1, before he was brought to Ashtead with the rest of the family. He later attended “Mr Johnson’s school at Ashtead” – SH Johnson and Gateforth House Preparatory School that changed its name to Downsend in 1895. His father leased The Hut from Col. Gleig as a residence but eventually purchased that property on 7 May 1901.

William went on to join his elder brothers, Frederick Chauncy and Kenneth James Maples at Winchester College, Hampshire, in 1893 and remained there until 1897. Like his brother Kenneth, William was in G house (Sergeant’s, also known as Phil’s) at Winchester. According to the College Archivist the Maples brothers probably knew it as Hewett’s, after their housemaster.

After membership of the Militia for a short period, he volunteered for the Regular Army becoming a 2nd Lieutenant on 11 July 1898 before assignment to the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, 19 May 1899. He advanced to the rank of Lieutenant, 26 January 1900, and sailed for South Africa with 43 men of Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment) in August 1902.

William E Maples
via Andy Pay
and by kind permission of Winchester College

Promotion to Captain followed on 5 June 1904. Having returned to England briefly, the 1st Battalion departed for India in 1905. William Maples obituary (in Wykehamists who died in the Great War, 1914-1918), however, indicates that he had been seconded to take part with the King’s African Rifles in the Nandi and Somaliland campaigns and that he had travelled widely in East Africa, Abyssinia and the Himalayas, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He returned to his own Regiment in India during 1910 before qualifying for admission to the Staff College in Quetta, 5 February 1914, but resigned his place three months later.

The Indian Army List for 1915 gives the names of officers from the 1st Battalion, West Riding Regiment, who left to fight on fronts elsewhere during the Great War, including Major WE Maples. He became an Acting Lieut. Col. on taking charge of 6th Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, 26 October 1916 [Gazetted posthumously], but survived only until 15 December 1916 when he was killed in action on the Tigris Line, Mesopotamia. "[General Sir Frederick Maude had been granted permission to begin an advance on Baghdad and a British attack was eventually launched on the night of 13/14 December 1916 on both banks of the River Tigris. Approximately 50,000 men, organised in two corps, were involved in the offensive with an objective of clearing defences from Khadairi Bend.]

His name is included on a plaque in the Winchester College Memorial Cloister His widowed mother lived on at The Hut, to claim this son’s Victory and British Medals on 5 August 1921, but the elder brother, Frederick, married Violet M. Robertson, daughter of Charles Murray Robertson in early 1917 before moving to The Murrays Court (formerly New Purchase farmhouse). Also named on WE Maples' Medal Index Card [as next of kin?] was Miss De Courcy-Butler of Woodcote Green House, Epsom, Surrey.

William Maples' brother Kenneth James Maples is also named on the Ashtead War Memorials at St George's and St Giles. He was a captain in the South Staffordshire Regiment and died at the age of 27 on 16th May 1915.

Frank Hicks is another Wykehamist listed on the Ashtead War Memorials - the Hicks and Maples were neighbours on Agates Lane.

Touchingly, the motto attached to In Memoriam notices for both WE Maples and his brother KJ Maples (the third brother, Frederick Chauncy Maples, also served as a Captain in Royal Field Artillery but survived) was Mors janua vitae - "Death is the gate of [everlasting] life".

Text: Brian Bouchard: if you can add to this page please contact the editor.
page added 2 Apr 2009: updated 26 May 2009