Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'Eric Brodrick was born on 24th April 1881 in Farnley, between Leeds and Pudsey, where his father was rector. He was the only son and youngest child of the Reverend Francis Brodrick, from Macclesfield, Cheshire, and his wife Jane Wood, from Warwickshire. Eric’s early education was as a boarding pupil at the Chevin Dell School at Otley, and St. George’s School, in Roundhay, Leeds. He attended Bradford Grammar School from the ages of fourteen to sixteen, in the years 1895-97. In the 1901 census he was aged nineteen, living with his parents and two sisters at Farnley Rectory and with no occupation stated. However, the next year he went to the Far East, to the Philippine Islands as a Province Agent in the employ of Messrs. Smith, Bell Co. This company, which is still trading today, specialized in the import-export trade and insurance in the Philippines.
In August 1914 when war broke out, Eric was on home leave, apparently in London. He at once enlisted as a private in the Royal Fusiliers’ Public Schools Battalion, before he transferred to the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps in September. In the Spring of 1915 Eric was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and he was posted to the 5th Battalion
Yorkshire Regiment, raised around Scarborough. Shortly after, on 17th April he married Margaret Lucy Moon whose father was a grocer in East Keswick, near Leeds. Since his parents had moved to Lancashire several years earlier, and his widowed mother now lived in Birkenhead, it is unclear how they met. In November, he was promoted to Lieutenant, and in March 1916 he joined his battalion on the Western Front. He was wounded and returned home to recuperate, before he rejoined his battalion.
In July 1916, the 5th Green Howards were in the Ypres Salient, near Kemmel. They took part in an attack on an enemy mine crater on 10th July, following which on the night of the 22nd Lieutenant Brodrick led a patrol into no man’s land to reconnoitre the German lines. The patrol came under heavy fire and Brodrick fell into the hands of the Germans, either mortally wounded or killed outright. Initially he was reported missing. The Germans buried his body
and his possessions were later returned to his wife through the Red Cross. Following the war, his body was re-buried in the British military cemetery at Larch Wood (Railway Cutting). His Battalion commander wrote to Brodrick’s mother:- ‘The whole Battalion, officers and men, sorrow with you. We all loved your son, and his men would have done anything for him.’
A fellow officer added:- ‘He was very much liked by everybody, officers and men, and set a splendid example by his coolness and courage under the most trying circumstances.’ A few weeks after his death, his wife Margaret gave birth to their child who she named Erica after her father. His name is on the East Keswick village war memorial and on a plaque in the
parish church.'