CHAYTOR Alban Kingsford

Born October 24th, 1890.
Alban Chaytor, the second son of the Reverend C. Chaytor, Rector of St. Helen’s, Worcester, entered the School from Tredennyke as a day boy in September, 1909, from the Upper Sixth, having been placed in the First Division of the London Matriculation and winning the Worfield Scholarship as well as the Inge Exhibition at Worcester College, Oxford. At School he was one of the most prominent athletes of his generation. For four years a member of the Cricket XI. and Captain in 1908, for three years in the Football team, and for two years in the School Boat and Captain in 1909. He excelled in elocution, and twice won the School Reading Prize, and few who heard him will forget his reverent renderings of the lessons in College Hall and in his father’s church, where he officiated as reader for several years. From Oxford he accepted a post as a tea planter in Ceylon, where he joined the Ceylon Rifles. On the outbreak of war he threw up his position and came home to take up a commission, which he soon obtained in the 6th Worcester’s, from which he was transferred to the 3rd Battalion at the front. He was dangerously wounded on May 23rd while in charge of a working party, and died on May 26th in the 8th Field Ambulance at La Clytte. His Colonel wrote: “He is a great loss to the Battalion and will be much missed.” He was of a remarkably affectionate disposition and always kept up a correspondence with his old Headmaster, to whom he had written shortly before his call came. He was patriotic to the core and has written early in the war to his father: “If England went under and we had not obeyed the call we would feel forever disgraced.”
“Pulchrumque mori succurrit in armis.”
W. H. C.

Source for additional information: The Vigornian, June 1915, No.83, Vol.VIII

A photograph of Lieutenant Chaytor can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 5th June 1915, available at Worcestershire Archives.

Alban Chaytor, De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour