Deller, HJ

2nd Lieutenant Harold James Deller

Harold was born in September 1896, the eldest child of brewery manager James Deller and his wife, Rachel. At the age of 13, having been at the Prep, he came to the College, a transition his younger brother Kenneth would follow him in making six years later. He left Dulwich in the summer of 1914 and went on to King’s College, London, where, despite having an arts scholarship, he attended the Medical School, often being involved in the treatment of those on the casualty ward.
At the end of 1915 he left King’s, in order to sit the exams for entry to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was successfully admitted that June. In February 1917 Harold passed out of Woolwich, and was assigned a commission in the Royal Field Artillery, with whom he went over to France on the 2nd of March. He took part in the fighting at Arras and Messines, and during this period was wounded on one occasion, and suffered the effects of gas on several others. In mid-July, as a result of having been gassed, he was given two weeks leave from the front line, but, due to a plethora of other injuries leaving his battery short-handed, returned to the front just ten days later. Two days afterwards, on July 30th 1917, a German shell hit his battery and Harold was hit in the head by shrapnel, dying instantaneously.