CAPTAIN EDWARD RALPH LAMBERT HOLLINS
KING'S OWN ROYAL LANCASTER REGIMENT
3RD MARCH 1916 AGE 32
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
The epitaph translates as 'Thus you shall go to the stars' and comes from Virgil's Aeneid Book IX Line 641. Edward Hollins was a schoolmaster, educated at Malvern and Emmanuel College Cambridge. He died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek the day after being involved in the retaking of The Bluff. This was a strategically significant mound, a spoil heap. It was only about 30 feet high but that was enough to provide a valuable observation point over the flat lands around Ypres. The Germans had captured it on 14 February. The British recaptured it on the 2 March with the loss of 1,620 lives.