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Herbert Albert Edwin Milnes

Herbert Albert Edwin Milnes

Date of Birth

Unknown

College

Borough Road College

Job(s)

Principal of Auckland Training College, New Zealand

Service number

22525

WW1 rank

Private, Lieutenant
New Zealand Expeditionary Force 

Theatre of war

Europe

Date of death

4 October 1917

Location of death

Otto Farm Ypres, 3rd Battle of Ypres/Passchendaele

Buried/memorial

Tyne Cot Cemetery, Belgium (Grave/Memorial reference: XXXVI C 6)

Biography

Second Lieutenant Herbert Albert Edwin Milnes attended BRC from 1893-1894 achieving a full certificate in art and successes in theoretical mechanics and theoretical chemistry. Milnes competed in Rugby for the college, and represented the college at inter-college sports days. He is listed as being destined for teaching in Reading after BRC. He became principal of Auckland Training College where he trained and taught. At the outbreak of the First World War he had been the Principal of Auckland Training College in New Zealand. He enlisted as a private on the 7 March 1916 and was later commissioned into the 3rd Battalion Auckland Regiment, New Zealand Expeditionary Force. During the war it is said that "the boys at the front called him Dad because of the way he looked after them. The men loved him like a father". Milnes' motto is remembered as – "Keep smiling, to the last". He was 43 when he was killed by shellfire at Otto Farm, Ypres during the 3rd Battle of Ypres.

Sources

Entry on p.85 [Roll of Honour page], Mentioned on Framed BRC Roll of Honour, BFSS/2/9/14/2, BFSS/2/9/8/1, 1893 Male applications box., BRCSYG35, Secondary source information provided by Douglas Craik (taken from Commonwealth War Graves Commission), The O.B.’s War Hum and Roll of Service (1918, 4th Edition) 1895 Annual Report