Lieutenant Ronald Lucas Quixano Henriques was an English officer of the British Army who died during the First World War.
He was born in 1884, in Kensington, the son of David Quixano, a West India merchant, and Agnes Charlotte Henriques (née Lucas). He joined the British Army in 1903,[1] being gazetted into the 2nd Battalion. The Queen's (Royal West Surrey Regiment), with which he served in Gibraltar, Bermuda, and South Africa. It was while on leave in Britain from the latter that he applied for a transfer to the regiment's 1st Battalion when war broke out in 1914.[2]
Henriques deployed to France with the 1st West Surreys, being active during the British Expeditionary Force's desperate retreat from Mons.[2] He died on 14 September 1914, during the First Battle of the Aisne. He was the first of the regiment's officers to be killed in the war,[3] as well as the first British officer of Jewish faith to die in the conflict.[4] In the Harrow Memorials of the Great War, there is the following account by a private relating the circumstances of his death:
"We started the advance, my Platoon about thirty yards behind, Mr. Henriques' in support. We had just come up out of a valley when the Germans opened fire on us. However, we kept on advancing until we were about thirty yards from the enemy. We were all up in line, and I was the third man from Mr. Henriques. He just raised his head and shoulders and said 'Advance' when he was shot through the centre of the forehead."[2]
He is buried in Vendresse British Cemetery.
Notes[]
- ↑ The London Gazette (27604), p. 6. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Harrow Memorials of the Great War: August 23rd, 1914, to March 20th, 1915, p. 13, archive.org. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
- ↑ Lieutenant RLQ Henriques, queensroyalsurreys.org.uk. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
- ↑ Emden, Paul Herman (1944), Jews of Britain: A Series of Biographies, p. 448.
References[]
- Henriques, Ronald Lucas Quixano, cwgc.org. Retrieved 13 October 2012.