SECOND LIEUTENANT ECKLEY OXTOBY ETHEREDGE
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
12TH JULY 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: RENINGHELST NEW MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Trefor Jones, in his book 'On Fame's Eternal Hunting Ground', points out that this inscription is a play on Second Lieutenant Etheredge's surname - either edge, Etheredge. This gives the inscription such a chivalric tone that I wondered whether it was the historic motto of the Etheredge family. The answer is no. There is an Etheredge family that has a motto but their motto is, 'He conquers by fortitude'.
Given the fact that Eckley Oxtoby Etheredge has such a distinctive name I also thought it would be easy to find out about him on the Internet but he seems strangely invisible. His parents appear: the 17 November 1900 edition of the Worcestershire Journal reports their divorce on the grounds of Augustus Etheredge's adultery. In the 1901 census Eckley Etheredge, his sister and his mother are living with her father in north London, and in the 1911 census there is no sign of him. Strangely, he does appear on a South African Roll of Honour although I have not been able to discover any link between him and South Africa. The London Gazette reports his commission on 10 December 1916 and then there is only the fact that he died at a Field Ambulance unit near Ypres on 17 July 1917.