Notes
His biography on the college website states: ‘Francis Ingleby was born at Underwood House, Hornsey, Middlesex , the youngest of the nine children of the Reverend John James Harrison, a chaplain and Naval Instructor, and his wife Louise Edith. On 1 July 1883 he was baptised at St John’s Church, Holloway.
Francis was educated at Westminster, and went up to Christ Church in 1902. He went to the Malay Straits Settlements as a planter and must have returned to England soon after war broke out. He was gazetted on 3 November 1915 to be a 2nd Lieutenant [on probation] in the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment. This rank was confirmed on 23 June 1916. Harrison was with 3rd Battalion/Depot for training whilst in UK – 3rd Battalion being the normal source of supply for replacements for the regular battalions. In November, he was promoted acting Captain in the Special Reserve.
Fighting in France, he was first wounded, and later died, in May 1918. He is mentioned once in the Regimental History:
'The Forest of Nieppe was to become very familiar to the 1st R.W.K. From the middle of April [1918] to the beginning of August the Fifth Division held this important sector. It was a time of constant activity. The Germans were constantly shelling the front line and subjecting the support and reserve positions to gas shelling, their aircraft concentrated their efforts on night bombing, and their machine-guns were extremely active. But they got as good as they gave. The British guns plied them assiduously with retaliatory fire and the battalion’s patrols obtained the upper hand in No Man’s Land and brought in much useful information. May saw the battalion visited by the influenza epidemic which was raging on the Western Front; an enormous number of men went sick and one officer, Lieut. R. H. Clarke, who had only just come out, succumbed to it. But against this casualties were low, only 5 men killed and 3 officers (2nd.Lieuts. Harrison, Ouzman, and Harding) and 30 men wounded for May, and 2 men killed and 19 wounded for the first ten days of June.'