Remembrance Dispatch 39 Edward Trevor Akrill Jones

REMEMBRANCE DISPATCH NO.39

LIEUTENANT EDWARD TREVOR AKRILL JONES

SCHOOL HOUSE 1909-1915

18TH MARCH 1918

AGED 19

Edward Trevor Akrill Jones joined School House in 1909 with his brother, Robert Rowland. Known at school as “The Babe”, Trevor was a talented sportsman. He regularly gained medals in the annual steeplechase, and he was selected for the 1st Cricket XI, 1st Hockey XV and the 1st XV.

Trevor was planning to try for a Varsity Scholarship to read Modern History at Oxford but desperate to enlist, he and his team-mate, E E Arnott, left school during the cricket season of 1915 – shortly after their sixteenth birthdays. Trevor joined the Inns of Court Officers Training Corps in May 1915 and was commissioned into the 4th (Reserve) Battalion, Sherwood Foresters.

Arriving in France in the late summer of 1916, he and Euan Arnott were involved in the bloody later stages of the Battle of the Somme. Euan died from wounds, just weeks after his arrival in France. During an unsuccessful attack on Thiepval 3rd September 1916, Trevor was wounded but he sustained a ‘blighty’ and was sent to recover at Park Wern Red Cross Hospital, Swansea. Declared fit for general service in March 1917, but still only 18 years old, he was deemed too young to return to the Front. He applied to train with the Royal Flying Corps and, after successfully gaining his wings, he was promoted to Flying Officer with 88th Squadron on 7th January 1918. On 18th March 1918, he was killed in a flying accident at Harling Road Aerodrome in Norfolk.

“So the toll of war takes our most and best beloved.”

Obituary to Edward Trevor Akrill Jones, The Breconian April 1918

Lieutenant Edward Trevor Akrill Jones is buried in St Mary’s Church, Bolsover, Derbyshire. His brother Robert Roland Akrill Jones, was killed at the Battle of Arras on 9th April 1917, and together they are remembered on the War Memorial in the Market Place, Bolsover, Derbyshire as well as on the Christ College War Memorial.