3rd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment
Cyril Cazalet Harrison was born on 13 July 1891 in Colombo, Ceylon to Hilda Beaumont and Harry Cazalet Harrison. He was baptised at St Michael and All Angels, Colombo on 10 August. The couple had three other children – Maurice Cazalet, Alan George Cazalet and Lettice Cazalet. Cyril’s parents married at Christ Church, Cheltenham on 2 September 1890 before their move to Colombo; his father was a tea planter.
Cyril was educated at Suffolk Hall, Cheltenham between September 1898 and December 1899. He then moved to Dunchurch Hall and School near Rugby, Warwickshire then Uppingham School. Further education took him to Wm Cobbold’s near Cambridge, and W Trevor’s in Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire from April 1909. In that year he applied to join the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was accepted and admitted on 2 February 1910; he was then a Corporal in the Cadet Corps. He left Sandhurst on 20 December 1910 and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Worcestershire Regiment on 4 March 1911.
By the time of the census of 1911 his father had died and he was living with his mother and sister, Lettice at Elstone, St Mark’s, Cheltenham. His occupation was recorded as ‘a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army’.
Cyril was promoted to Lieutenant in August 1914 in time for his battalion’s posting to France on the 16th of that month.
During August and September the 3rd Battalion was involved in the Battle of Mons and the subsequent retreat, the Battle of Le Cateau, the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of the Aisne including participation in the Actions on the Aisne heights. The advance of the British Expeditionary Force northwards from the Marne was halted as the Germans dug in along the heights above the River Aisne. British attacks were repelled and both sides dug in.
In September, during the Battle of the Aisne, Cyril had, with his platoon, reinforced the Irish Rifles, and, while observing and directing his men’s fire from a trench, was shot through the head on 20 September; he was 23 years of age.
Lieutenant Cyril Cazalet Harrison is remembered on La Ferte-Sous-Jouarre Memorial.
He is also remembered on the Christ Church Roll of Honour; Cheltenham Borough Cemetery on the grave of his parents and sister Lettice; Cheltenham War Memorial; St Stephen’s Church Book of Remembrance and St Luke’s Church.
La Ferte-Sousse-Jouarre Memorial