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Raymond Asquith
Raymond Herbert Asquith (6 November 1878 – 15 September 1916) was an English barrister and eldest son of British prime minister H. H. Asquith. A distinguished Oxford scholar, he was a member of the fashionable group of intellectuals known as the Coterie, which included Lady Diana Manners (with whom he had a long flirtatious relationship), Patrick Shaw-Stewart, Charles Lister, Hugo "Ego" Charteris, Julian Grenfell and Edward Horner. The Coterie were notable for their unconventional lifestyles and lavish hospitality. Like several of them, Asquith was killed in action in the First World War during his father's term in office.
Asquith was the eldest son of British prime minister H. H. Asquith and his first wife, Helen Kelsall Melland.
He was educated at Winchester, from where he won a scholarship to Balliol in 1896, taking with him a reputation for brilliance. He won the Ireland, Derby, and Craven scholarships, and graduated with first-class honours. Elected a fellow of All Souls in 1902, he received the Eldon Law Scholarship, and was called to the bar in 1904. The tall, handsome Asquith was a member of the Coterie, a group of Edwardian socialites and intellectuals.
Asquith was junior counsel in the North Atlantic Fisheries Arbitration and the British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and was considered a putative Liberal candidate for Derby. However, his rise was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. He was initially commissioned, on 17 December 1914, as a second lieutenant into the 16th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles). He was transferred to the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards on 14 August 1915, and assigned as a staff officer, but he requested to be returned to active duty with his battalion, a request granted before the Battle of the Somme.
While leading the first half of 4 Company in an attack near Ginchy on 15 September 1916, at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, he was shot in the chest at 4.30 pm but famously lit a cigarette to hide the seriousness of his injuries so that his men would continue the attack. He died whilst being carried back to British lines. His body was buried at Guillemont in the CWGC Guillemont Road Cemetery (Plot I. Row B. Grave 3.). The grave's headstone is inscribed: 'Small time but in that small most greatly lived this star of England', a concluding line from Shakespeare's Henry V.
In his 1928 obituary tribute to H.H. Asquith, Winston Churchill summarised Asquith's last moments:
It seemed quite easy for Raymond Asquith, when the time came, to face death and to die. When I saw him at the Front he seemed to move through the cold, squalor and peril of the winter trenches as if he were above and immune from the common ills of the flesh, a being clad in polished armour, entirely undisturbed, presumably invulnerable. The War which found the measure of so many, never got to the bottom of him, and when the Grenadiers strode into the crash and thunder of the Somme, he went to his fate cool, poised, resolute, matter of fact, debonair. And well we know that his father, then bearing the supreme burden of the State, would proudly have marched at his side.
The writer John Buchan devoted several pages of his autobiography Memory Hold-the-Door to his friendship with Asquith. He noted of Raymond's character:
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Raymond Asquith
Raymond Herbert Asquith (6 November 1878 – 15 September 1916) was an English barrister and eldest son of British prime minister H. H. Asquith. A distinguished Oxford scholar, he was a member of the fashionable group of intellectuals known as the Coterie, which included Lady Diana Manners (with whom he had a long flirtatious relationship), Patrick Shaw-Stewart, Charles Lister, Hugo "Ego" Charteris, Julian Grenfell and Edward Horner. The Coterie were notable for their unconventional lifestyles and lavish hospitality. Like several of them, Asquith was killed in action in the First World War during his father's term in office.
Asquith was the eldest son of British prime minister H. H. Asquith and his first wife, Helen Kelsall Melland.
He was educated at Winchester, from where he won a scholarship to Balliol in 1896, taking with him a reputation for brilliance. He won the Ireland, Derby, and Craven scholarships, and graduated with first-class honours. Elected a fellow of All Souls in 1902, he received the Eldon Law Scholarship, and was called to the bar in 1904. The tall, handsome Asquith was a member of the Coterie, a group of Edwardian socialites and intellectuals.
Asquith was junior counsel in the North Atlantic Fisheries Arbitration and the British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and was considered a putative Liberal candidate for Derby. However, his rise was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. He was initially commissioned, on 17 December 1914, as a second lieutenant into the 16th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Queen's Westminster Rifles). He was transferred to the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards on 14 August 1915, and assigned as a staff officer, but he requested to be returned to active duty with his battalion, a request granted before the Battle of the Somme.
While leading the first half of 4 Company in an attack near Ginchy on 15 September 1916, at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, he was shot in the chest at 4.30 pm but famously lit a cigarette to hide the seriousness of his injuries so that his men would continue the attack. He died whilst being carried back to British lines. His body was buried at Guillemont in the CWGC Guillemont Road Cemetery (Plot I. Row B. Grave 3.). The grave's headstone is inscribed: 'Small time but in that small most greatly lived this star of England', a concluding line from Shakespeare's Henry V.
In his 1928 obituary tribute to H.H. Asquith, Winston Churchill summarised Asquith's last moments:
It seemed quite easy for Raymond Asquith, when the time came, to face death and to die. When I saw him at the Front he seemed to move through the cold, squalor and peril of the winter trenches as if he were above and immune from the common ills of the flesh, a being clad in polished armour, entirely undisturbed, presumably invulnerable. The War which found the measure of so many, never got to the bottom of him, and when the Grenadiers strode into the crash and thunder of the Somme, he went to his fate cool, poised, resolute, matter of fact, debonair. And well we know that his father, then bearing the supreme burden of the State, would proudly have marched at his side.
The writer John Buchan devoted several pages of his autobiography Memory Hold-the-Door to his friendship with Asquith. He noted of Raymond's character: