Arthur Moore Lascelles

Born at Streatham in London on 12 October 1880, he was studying as a medical student at Edinburgh University when he emigrated to South Africa in 1902 and joined the Cape Mounted Rifles as a Trooper. When the First World War began, he served with the 1st South African Mounted Rifles and fought in the campaign in German South West Africa. When that campaign ended, he returned home and was commissioned in December 1915 in the 3rd Battalion DLI as a Second Lieutenant. He fought on the Western Front in 1916 with the 14th (Service) Battalion DLI and was badly wounded in September 1916. He was awarded the Military Cross at Loos on 15 June 1917, when he led a daring daylight raid, and the Victoria Cross at Masnieres on 3 December 1917 during the Battle of Cambrai, when he was again severely wounded.

On 11 January 1918, the London Gazette announced the award to Captain Lascelles and on 23 March, he was presented with his Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace.

Though still recovering from his wounds, Arthur Lascelles returned to the Western Front with the 15th (Service) Battalion DLI and was killed in action on 7 November 1918, just four days before the Armistice on 11 November. He was 38 years old and left a widow, Sophia, whom he had married in South Africa in 1907. Captain Arthur Moore Lascelles is buried in Dourlers Cemetery in France.

See "Beyond Praise. The Durham Light Infantrymen who were awarded the Victoria Cross" by Stephen D Shannon, 1998, ISBN 1 897585 44 6. This has a foreword by Richard Annand VC.