The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment

Captain D H Skinner


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Captain Douglas Hilton SKINNER, "A" Company, 7th Battalion, Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment, died of wounds, (received in action at Trones Wood, during the Battle of the Somme on 13th July 1916),  at No.5. Casualty Clearing Station, France, 16th July 1916, age 24.

20th June 1892, born  Beckenham, Kent, elder son of Hilton Skinner and Emily Catharine Skinner, (2nd daughter of the late Thomas Thomson, of Chalfont Eden Park, Solicitor and a descendant of the late Robert Skinner, Bishop of Oxford in 1641), of Ash Lodge, Hayes, Kent.


1911 Census - Charterhouse, Godalming, Surrey - Douglas Hilton Skinner, boarder, age 18, single, at school, born Beckenham, Kent.

1911 Census - Ash Lodge, Hayes, Kent, Hilton Skinner, age 49, married, Private Means, (crossed through), born Liverpool, Lancashire; Emily Catharine Skinner, wife, age 46, married 19 years, 3 children, 2 still alive, born Dulwich, Surrey; Eliza Trickey, servant, age 38, single, house parlour maid domestic, born Farnborough, Kent; Mary Elizabeth Seymour, servant, age 27, single, cook domestic, born Cullompton, Devonshire.


Educated St Andrew's, Eastbourne & Charterhouse, where he was head of Weekites & a Cadet Lieutenant in the Charterhouse Officers' Training Corps & University College Oxford where he graduated B.A. Oxford in May 1916; Studied Medicine, and was in his fourth year, with a view to entering the RAMC, but applied for a commission on the outbreak of war in August 1914, and in the meantime enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers; was Gazetted 1st September 1914, 2nd Lieutenant,  Royal West Kent Regiment; 1st February 1915, promoted Lieutenant; 29th December 1915, promoted Captain; trained at Purfleet and on Salisbury Plain; served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from July 1915, where for a time he was Acting Adjutant.

The Battalion Major wrote: "I can honestly say there was no more competent officer in the Battalion, nor one who was better liked; under any circumstances he was always in the best of spirits and a great pal with us all. He did his fair share in a magnificient performance... I am sure you will be glad to know he was doing extraordinarily good work, and at the time was commanding a Company; you may well be proud of him," and a brother officer; "I have never met anyone who did such good work with such a little to say about it. He did fine work trhe night he was wounded, and was most gallant when wounded."

13th September 1916, Probate - Douglas Hilton Skinner, of Ash Lodge, Hayes Common, Kent, Lieutenant His Majesty's Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment, died 16th July 1916, in France on active service. Administration London 13th September to Hilton Skinner esquire. Effects £382 7s 3d.

Buried at Daours Communal Cemetery Extension, I. B. 12., France, & commemorated on the War Memorial at Hayes (St Mary Church yard),  Bromley, Kent. Commemorated at Charterhouse School, Godlaming, Surrey.


London Gazette 10th March 1915.

Royal West Kent Regiment) 7th Battalion. - The under mentioned temporary Second Lieutenants to be temporary Lieutenants. Dated 1st February, 1915. - Douglas H. Skinner.

London Gazette 28th November 1916.

The under mentioned to be temporary Captains - Temporary Lieutenant  D. H. Skinner (since died of wounds). 29 December 1915


This page was last updated on 31-Jan-2022.

Copyright © 2008 Janet & Richard Mason