Mallett, ES

2nd Lieutenant Eric Sidney Mallett

Born in Liverpool on December 9^th 1893, Eric was the fifth of six children born to insurance manager Henry Mallett and his wife Lizzie. The family later moved to London and in 1905, when Eric followed his older brothers, Harold and Arthur, at Dulwich, were living in Beckenham. He would go on to be at the College for the next four years, leaving in July 1909 whilst a member of the Modern Upper Fourth. The following year he went out to Switzerland, and spent a year at the Ecole de Commerce in Neuchatel. Upon his return to England he followed his father into the insurance industry, taking up employment with the North British & Mercantile Company.

Shortly after the declaration of war in August 1914 Eric enlisted in the Artists Rifles, with whom he was serving when sent to the continent for the first time that December. The following June he returned to England to take up a commission in the East Lancashire Regiment. He returned to the front with his new unit and in the summer of 1916 was posted to the Somme in preparation for the major offensive. On July 1^st 1916 he was killed whilst leading his platoon in an assault near Beaumont-Hamel, one of seven OAs to die during the first day of the Somme.