Marston, CP

Rifleman Cyril Preston Marston

Cyril was born on May 11^th 1899, the youngest of seven children of magazine editor and publisher Robert Marston and his wife, Fanny. He spent time at Denmark Hill School before, in May 1912, following all three of his older brothers by starting at Dulwich. He went on to be at the College for the next three years, leaving in the summer of 1915.

Shortly after turning 18, in the summer of 1917, Cyril enlisted for military service as a member of the London Regiment, and spent the rest of that year in training, at both Wimbledon and Blackdown Camp outside Farnborough. On Easter Sunday 1918 he was sent over to France, serving with the London Irish Rifles. He soon became a Lewis Gunner and through the rest of that summer saw action at Albert, and Armentieres, including being present at the capture of Lille. On November 5^th, less than a week before the armistice would be called, he and around twenty comrades were resting in a barn, not far from Tournai, when the roof was struck by a German gas shell. All the men were affected by the gas, but only Cyril fatally; this was put down to a throat operation he had had some years earlier leaving him particularly susceptible. His elder brother, Arthur, also an OA, had been killed on the Somme two years earlier.