Category: Military
Rank: Lieutenant
Regiment or Ship: Somerset Light Infantry (3rd Battalion attached to the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry)
Date of Birth: 1890
Place of Birth: Kensington, London
Date of Death: 22.11.1915
Place of Death: Ctesiphon near Baghdad, Mesopotamia.
Place of Burial / Memorials:
AL Basrah, Iraq; remembered on the Basra Memorial Panel 12.
Address: 7 Dorset Road, Bexhill
Photos and newspaper articles
Click on any image to see a larger version
Family Information
Parents:- William Frederick Honywood Hinde, born 3rd October 1861, at “Elm Grove”, Dawlish, Devon married Edith Maude Bagwell (see below) in Bath, Somerset, in 1889.
Edith was a British subject, born on 20th January 1866, in Maison Barthe, Rue Bordenave d’Abère, Basses-Pyrénées, France – she was the daughter of Agnes & John BAGWELL and was baptized, on 21st March 1866, at the Trinity Church (Protestant), in France,
She died on 7th December 1915, in Bexhill; aged 49 and was buried in the same grave as her husband, on 9th December 1916.
William, the father, also served in WW1 and was killed in action a couple of months after his son.
W0209 HINDE William Frederick Honywood
Siblings:
Eileen Maude Agnes Hinde was born in 1894 and died in 1927. In early November 1915, Eileen had been part of a small family of four but, by the end of January 1916, had became the only surviving member after the death of her brother (see above), her mother (also see above) and, then, her father on 22nd January 1916.
Spouse: No record has been found of Henry Basil Lindesay ever marrying.
First World War Experience
None of Henry’s service records appear to have survived so all we know of his military experiences come from the local newspapers of the time. The Bexhill Chronicle reported, on 29th January 1916, that he had “seen active and exciting service at Kut-el-Amara in the expedition from India to Baghdad, had fallen at Ctesiphon on or about the 22nd or 24th of November.”
Ctesiphon (pronounced, roughly, Tesifon) was an ancient city on the River Tigris, in what was Mesopotamia but is, today, Iraq. After, what was known as, the Mesopotamia Campaign, in WW1, the town became, and remains, a ruined city.
Turkey’s entry into the war, on 29th October 1914, immediately prompted Britain to open a new military front in the remote Ottoman province of Mesopotamia.
Henry’s regiment, attached to the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry who were stationed in India, was sent to the Persian Gulf in early November to protect the British supply of oil at Abadan.
They came up against only a weak Turkish resistance and, in less than a month, they had occupied the towns of Basra and Kurna, capturing more than 1,000 Turkish prisoners and losing just 65 of their own men.
In 1915, in spite of the unforgiving climate, British forces continued to march steadily up the River Tigris and, by 28th September, they had taken the town of Kut-al-Amara, just 120 miles south of Mesopotamia’s major city, Baghdad.
Because of the ease with which they had gained so much ground, the British considered the Turkish forces to be of no consequence, especially after 2,000 Turkish soldiers surrendered to a tiny British advance force in the garrison town of Amara, in June 1915.
The tide turned quickly, however, at the Battle of Ctesiphon (22nd-26th November 1915). This had seemed to be nothing more than a march on to Baghdad, but, instead, it was a bloody affair, in which Turkish troops withstood heavy casualties and defeated those of the attacking British.
More than half of the 8,500 British and Indian troops who fought at Ctesiphon were killed or wounded – and one of these was Lieutenant Henry Basil Lindesay Hinde, who was killed on the first day of the conflict. The survivors then endured a dangerous and exhausting retreat to Kut-al-Amara – without decent medical or transport facilities, which later were investigated by a parliamentary commission.
Additional Information
There were newspapers reports on the death of William Frederick Honywood and his son, Both William & Henry Basil Lindesay Hinde and transcriptions of those reports can be viewed here. NewspaperReports
Note. All the probate records, come from the “All England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966”.
A transcription of the Will of Henry Basil Lindesay Hinde:-
HINDE Henry Basil Lindesay of Drayton House Uppingham Rutland lieutenant Somersetshire Light Infantry died 22 November 1915 at Ctesiphon near Baghdad Mesopotamia Administration London 24 October to Geoffrey Clemens Cobb stockbroker. Effects £76 12s 6d.
£76 12s. 6d. in 1916 has been calculated to have had an approximate value of £5,500, in 2011.
NOTE – On 3rd August 1916, at St George’s, Hanover Square, Middlesex, Eileen Maude Agnes Hinde married Geoffrey Clemens Cobb, who appears to have been the family’s stockbroker for many years.
Both William (the father) and Henry (the brother) left their money, in their Wills, to this man, Cobb, so, perhaps, in the detail of the Will, arrangements had been made regarding the wife and daughter in the event of the men’s deaths. Perhaps, also, Eileen and Geoffrey were already engaged at the time the Wills were made.