Richard Erle Benson – East Yorkshire Regiment, Commanding 1st Battalion

Lieutenant‑Colonel Richard Erle Benson – East Yorkshire Regiment, Commanding 1st Battalion

Family Origins

Richard Erle Benson

Richard Erle Benson was born in London in 1862, the son of General Henry Roxby Benson, veteran of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, and Mary Henrietta Wightman, daughter of the Gower judge William Wightman. Henry and Mary had married in 1845 at St Paul’s Church, London, uniting two families long associated with service, law, and imperial duty.

General Henry Roxby Benson – Crimean & Indian Mutiny Veteran

General Henry Roxby Benson belonged to the generation of Victorian officers who fought in Britain’s defining mid‑century conflicts. He served with distinction in the Crimean War, enduring the harsh winters, disease, and mismanagement that characterised the early stages of the campaign. He later fought in the Indian Mutiny (1857–1858), one of the most violent and politically consequential uprisings in British imperial history.

His marriage to Mary Henrietta Wightman connected the Benson military tradition with the Wightman legal dynasty of Fairy Hill, Reynoldston, establishing a family whose sons were expected to serve the Crown. Several did:

• Lieutenant‑Colonel Richard Erle Benson, East Yorkshire Regiment

• Colonel S. M. Benson, 17th Lancers

• Major H. W. Benson, D.S.O., later commanding the Swansea Battalion, Welsh Regiment

Through this union, Henry Roxby Benson became closely associated with Reynoldston, Gower — the village where his son Richard would eventually be laid to rest.

Early Life & Education

1881 Census

The earliest census entry in which Richard appears is the 1881 Census, where he is recorded as Richard E. Benson, aged 18, a student at Eton College. Raised in a household where loyalty to Crown and country was almost hereditary, he grew up beneath the long shadow of campaigns, medals, and the stern Victorian conviction that character was forged through discipline and sacrifice.

Marriage & Family

In 1894, Richard married Janet Florence Armour at Westminster, London, establishing a household that mirrored both the mobility and the social expectations of an officer’s life.

1901 Census: Dublin

By the 1901 Census, the Benson family were living at Dartmouth Square, Rathmines & Rathgar East, Dublin. Richard, then 38, was recorded as a Captain on the Active List in H.M.’s Regular Forces, while his wife Florence, aged 29, appeared alongside their young daughter Marguerite, aged 3. The household was supported by three servants — Sophia Phillips, Emma Heale, and Elizabeth Feehan — illustrating the comfortable domestic arrangements typical of a professional officer’s family at the turn of the century.

1911 Census: South Farnborough

1911 Census

A decade later, the 1911 Census shows the family residing at Glenarthur, Netley Street, South Farnborough, Hampshire. Richard, now 48, was listed as a Retired Major of the East Yorkshire Regiment, while Florence, aged 37, appeared with their three children: Marguerite (13), Mary (8), and John (7). The household included a governess, Constance Wall, and two servants, Jessie Harris and Winifred Wyeth, reflecting a stable and well‑ordered domestic life on the eve of the Great War.

Military Career

Richard’s military service carried him far from home: to Bechuanaland, to the dusty marches of Cape Colony, and into the unsettled aftermath of the South African War. He rose steadily through the ranks, not through flamboyance but through the quiet competence senior officers prized — a man who kept his head, who understood the regiment as a living organism, and who could be relied upon when the stakes were highest.

The First World War

When war broke out in August 1914, Lieutenant‑Colonel Richard Erle Benson was among the seasoned officers recalled to lead Britain’s small but professional Expeditionary Force. His regiment, the 1st Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment, formed part of the 18th Brigade, 6th Division, and crossed to France in early September.

Mobilisation and Advance to the Aisne

The battalion moved south through crowded railheads and dust‑choked roads, reaching the front as the Allied armies attempted to halt the German retreat and force them back across the Aisne. Benson, already a veteran of colonial campaigns, provided steady leadership during these chaotic early movements.

The Battle of the Aisne

The Battle of the Aisne marked the moment the war shifted from mobile operations to entrenched stalemate. The East Yorkshires advanced across steep, rain‑soaked ridges under relentless machine‑gun and shrapnel fire, the enemy holding the high ground with commanding fields of fire. Chalky slopes turned to mud under constant drizzle, and the battalion faced the full force of modern industrial warfare.

Leading from the Front

Benson refused to direct operations from safety. He believed an officer’s place was with his men, sharing their danger. During one of the battalion’s attacks, he moved forward with his companies, urging them on through wire‑strewn approaches to the German line. He was struck down within fifty yards of the enemy trenches, hit while rallying his men amid the chaos of battle.

Evacuation and Final Days

He was carried back through the shattered ground and evacuated to the base hospital at St Nazaire, where hundreds of wounded men from the Aisne were being treated. Despite medical efforts, his condition deteriorated, and he died of his wounds on 27 September 1914.

Death & Burial

St George’s Church, Reynoldston burial register

The burial register of St George’s Church, Reynoldston records that Richard died on 27 September 1914, succumbing to wounds received at the Battle of the Aisne, and that he was buried on 9 October 1914.

Richard Erle Benson
St. George's Church, Reynoldston
credit - findagrave

Crucially, Richard’s body was among the last to be brought home to Britain for burial during the First World War. As the war intensified, the repatriation of fallen soldiers ceased almost entirely; from late 1914 onward, the dead were buried where they fell, in the cemeteries of France, Belgium, and later the wider theatres of war. Benson’s return to Gower therefore stands as a poignant exception — a final echo of pre‑war tradition before the enormity of the conflict made such homecomings impossible.

His body was returned to the quiet Gower village where generations of his family had lived, judged, served, and commanded. Far from the thunder of the Aisne, Lieutenant‑Colonel Richard Erle Benson, commanding the 1st Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment, rests among his kin — a soldier of the old Army, carried into a new and terrible century.