Major Charles Cecil Gordon
Unit B Battery, 110th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 28th of November 1885
Place of Birth: Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Date of Death: 4th of June 1917
Buried: Kandahar Farm Cemetery
Location: West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Cemetery/memorial reference: I. B. 11.
Gordon, Charles Cecil, Major, R.F.A., son of Charles Gordon, of Woltemade, St. James', Muizenberg, Cape Province, Actuary, F.F.A. and F.I.A., by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Grant; b. Aberdeen, 28 Nov 1885. In July 1891, on father's appointment to Cape Colony, and resided at Wynberg and St. James', in Cape Peninsula. He was educated at St. Aidan's College, Graham's Town; High School, Wynberg, and at the South African College, Cape Town, Cape Colony, and remained there until Aug. 1905, when he proceeded to England; entered the Militia Artillery at Edinburgh, and then studied for the Army under private tutors in Teignmouth and London. In March 1908, he gained in competition one of the two artillery commissions offered to Militia, being second on the full list with 91 per cent of marks. He was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant on 11 May 1908 in the R.G.A. and soon exchanged into R.F.A. in which he continued to the end; was first stationed at Shoeburyness, then in South Africa, at Middleburg, Cape and Roberts Heights. In Nov 1910, he transferred to Hyderabad, Sind, India; promoted Lieutenant in 1913, and Captain in 1915, being Adjutant to his battery from 1915 to 1917, and on 31 Jan 1917 sailed from Bombay for Europe; served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 5 March following, and was killed in action at Hill 63, near Neuve Eglise in Belgium, 4 June 1917.
Kemmel Hill seen from the road to Warneton, at Neuve Eglise © IWM Q 17874
Buried at Kandahar Farm there. An officer wrote: "I am the oldest member of this battery and saw it in its infancy in England and three years' experience under various Battery Commanders showed me that Major Gordon was an officer of untiring zeal and resource, and we all looked up to him as the very finest example of Gunner the British Army ever produces. he had a grand career before him."
Major Charles Cecil Gordon, Unit B Battery, 110th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery, Commemorative Certificate
Photo courtesy of the Imperial War Museum © IWM HU 115203
