Lilley, EAH

Captain Edmund Arthur Howe Lilley

Born on November 21^st 1882, Edmund was the son of Captain Edmund Lilley and his wife, Melina. He spent four and a half years at the College, joining in the summer of 1893 and leaving at the end of 1897, shortly after his fifteenth birthday, at which time he was in the Modern Lower Fourth. From Dulwich he went out to Gibraltar where he was employed in the Harbour Works for nine years. After almost a decade in Gibraltar he returned to England where he eventually settled down to farming poultry and fruit at Ifield, Sussex.

In August 1915 Edmund enlisted in the Army and was gazetted to a commission in the Bedfordshire Regiment. He went over to France for the first time in May 1916 but was taken severely ill with appendicitis whilst stationed at Gommecourt not long afterwards, and as a result invalided back to England for an operation. Upon his recovery he returned to the front, now posted to the 6^th Battalion of his regiment, and was promoted to Lieutenant in July 1917. A year later, in the summer of 1918, he was promoted to Captain and placed in temporary command of the 112^th Trench Mortar Battery, at Bucquoy. Shortly afterwards, on July 31^st 1918, Edmund was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel, fatally wounding him. He was survived by his widow, Annie, whom he had married on September 21^st 1907.