Leighton, A

Captain Archibald Leighton

Archie was born on January 23^rd 1892, the fifth of seven children of bookbinder Thomas Leighton and his wife, Edith. He joined the College from the Prep at the beginning of 1905, by which point his elder brothers Robert and Douglas, were already Old Alleynians. He would also be joined just over a year later by his younger brother, Harold. Archibald was at Dulwich for almost three and a half years before leaving in April 1908. After leaving school he went on to work for W. Watson & Sons, an optician’s based in Holborn.

In August 1914, very shortly after the declaration of war, Archie signed up for military service, at first joining the London Scottish. In April 1915 he took up a commission in the Royal Army Service Corps and subsequently went over to France for the first time in January 1916, serving with the 34^th Divisional Train. That July he was promoted to Lieutenant, and the following June was promoted once more, to Captain – the latter promotion coming less than a month after he had been mentioned in dispatches. In December 1917 he was attached to the London Regiment, and ultimately ended up serving with the Civil Service Rifles Battalion. It was while he was with this unit that he was killed, leading his company in an assault on an enemy position near Moislaine, on September 2^nd 1918. His younger brother, Harold, a fellow OA, had lost his life in a shell blast near Arras the previous year.