2nd Battalion, attached 9th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. Son of Christopher Colborne Graham and Mary Johnstone Graham, of Oriel House, Scarborough. Died 1 October 1917. Aged 29.
Commemorated Panel 52 to 54 and 162A, on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
2nd Lieutenant Hugh Colborne Graham was educated at Winchester College. The following information on 2nd Lieutenant Graham appears on the Winchester College website, winchestercollegeatwar. Suzanne Foster, the College Archivist, has kindly allowed this information to be used by The Yorkshire Regiment, the First World War.
Hugh Colborne Graham was the younger son of Christopher Colborne Graham and Mary Johnstone Graham, of Oriel House, Scarborough (formerly of Highmoor, Ilkley). His father was the Mayor of Scarborough. Winchester College lost track of Graham for many years; the Register printed in 1956 recorded only that he was dead with no further details. At some point, however, his name was added to War Cloister. It seems that he left Winchester to go to Giggleswick School, nearer his Scarborough home. Graham attended Leeds University, where he took a BSc, and was described by The Times as ‘an ardent Socialist’.
He was quick to volunteer at the outbreak of the First World War, at first trying to enlist in a New Army battalion forming in Hull, but failed the medical: “His physique was exceptionally good, but he was rejected, much to his disappointment, on account of sight.” He was accepted, however, into the RAMC, and spent two years attached to the Northumberland Fusiliers.
When, at the end of 1916, there was a need for more infantry officers, he volunteered to be trained and was sent on a course at Bristol University. In the summer of 1917 he returned to the front to serve with 9th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, in the Ypres Salient.
He was killed, after hard fighting on 28 September, on 1 October 1917, during the advance on the Menin Road, during the Third Battle of Ypres. He was 29. With no known grave, he is commemorated in panels 52-54 and 162A of the Tyne Cot Memorial.
Further details of Lt Graham’s family and his background can be found on the Scarborough Maritime Heritage website.
Lt Graham is also commemorated on the Leeds University OTC Roll of Honour and on the family grave in Dean Road Cemetery, Scarborough.