CAPT. ALFRED EDWIN CLAUD TOKE DOONER, ADJUTANT 1ST BATTN. ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS. KILLED IN ACTION AT ZANDVOORDE, NEAR YPRES, OCTOBER 30TH, 1914. AGED 22. At the School 1905—10 (Park House). Lieut. A. E. C. T. Dooner was the third son of Colonel William Toke Dooner, O.B.E., J.P. for County of Kent and Rochester, late Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and Mrs. Dooner, of Ditton Place, near Maidstone, and brother-in-law of General Sir Archibald Murray. His father commanded the 1st Battn. Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers from 1888 to 1893, and then, after Commanding the Armagh District till 1899, was Adjutant-General, Thames District, till he retired in 1902. The eldest son, Lieut.-Colonel W. D. Dooner, Royal Army Ordnance Department, had been severely wounded at Ladysmith in 1899. In the Great War he served at the War Office, being appointed Assistant Director of Salvage, and for his services was promoted Brevet Lieut.- Colonel in 1915, and awarded the C.M.G. in 1918 and the O.B.E. in 1919. He retired in 1921. The second son, Lieut.-Colonel J. G. Dooner, D.S.O., R.F.A., was killed in action at Mt. Rozoy, near Soissons, on July 31st, 1918. He was educated at Bradfield College, and, going to Woolwich, won the Governors' Challenge Prize and the Silver Bugle at the R.M.A. Sports of 1895, being first in the Hundred, the Quarter, and the Long Jump. He served throughout the Boer War, being present at the Relief of Ladysmith, at Spion Kop and Yaal Kranz, on the Tugela Heights, and at Pieter's Hill, etc., and was twice mentioned in Despatches, and had no less than eight clasps. He was promoted Major in 1913, and Lieut.-Colonel in June, 1917. He had held many Staff appointments, first as Artillery Instructor and Adjutant of the R.M.A., and was a G.S.O. at the War Office from April, 1914, till he went to France in command of a Brigade of the R.F.A. early in 1916. He was wounded in July of that year, but returned to the Front, and at the time of his death was serving as G.S.O.I. on the H.Q. Staff of the 34th Division. In addition to being three times mentioned in Despatches, he was awarded the D.S.O. and the French Croix de Guerre, and in January, 1917, was promoted Brevet Lieut.-Colonel. Claud Dooner obtained a Foundation Scholarship at Tonbridge m 1905, from the King's School, Rochester. He was in the Shooting VIII. 1907—10, and in 1908 and 1909 won the Warner Cup for the best average in matches with 60-89 and 62-09. In 1909 he contributed 66 when his House pair won the Hansard Cup with the record score of 129, only just defeating School House L to Z, Dooner had to fire the last shot, requiring an inner to win, and shooting with characteristic coolness and deliberation put on a bull. He represented the School in the shooting for the Spencer Cup at Bisley, in 1910. He became a Sergeant in the Cadet Corps in May, 1908, and was one of a group of leading boys in his House who have, indeed, suffered heavily in th( War. When Park House won the Mitchell Cup in that year, they had four Sergeants in the House Section, Sergeant L. Loewe in command, and Sergeants H. M. White head, A. E. C. T. Dooner and J. G. Ruble whilst R. McDougall was a Corporal. Of these five, McDougall, Dooner, Whitehead and Loewe, all in turn gave their lives for their country. The fifth, J. G. Ruble, as Assistant District Commissioner in Uganda, was home on leave when war broke out, and wished to take a Commission. When the Colonial Office refused to permit this, he returned to Uganda, rather than stay in England doing nothing. From January, 1909, after the Cadet Corps became the O.T.C., Dooner was C.S.M. till he became a Cadet Officer in September, 1909. He assisted his House to win the Mitchell Cup for three consecutive years, 1908—10, and in 1910 commanded the section. He was in the Modern Vlth from 1906 to 1910, and was School Praepostor and Captain of his House 1909—10 ; he was also in the School Football XV. for the same year. He passed third into Sandhurst, and was in the Company trained that year at Woolwich, winning the Company Drill prize there in 1911. In the following year he passed as a first-class Interpreter of German, having previously, when at  Tonbridge, gained the first prize in the Examination in that language open to members of all Public Schools. He had been gazetted to the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and his promotion to Lieut, was dated September 4th, 1912 When war was declared, he was serving a Malta with the 1st Battn., of which he had been appointed Adjutant on July 2Gth, thus becoming doubtless, at that time, the youngest Adjutant in the British Army. His promotion to Captain, dated October 27th, 1914, appeared in the Gazette some time after his death. The Battalion were ordered home, and reached Lyndhurst on September 15th to form part of the 22nd Brigade, in the 7th Division. The Division embarked on October 4th, and the Royal Welch Fusiliers landed at Ostend on the 7th, and, after marching to a camp four miles S.E. of Bruges, only to be sent back to Ostend the next day, reached Ghent by rail on the 9th. On the 10th they were engaged in support of Belgian and French troops, S.B. of Meirelbeke; but, retirement becoming necessary on the 11th, marched via Hansbeke, Thielt and Roulers to Ypres, which they reached on the 14th. On the 16th the 7th Division occupied the line Zonnebeke-Gheluvelt-Zandvoorde, the Welch Fusiliers holding the outpost position on the Passchendaele to Werwicq Road, and then on the 18th they moved to Veldhoek, west of Gheluvelt, and the 20th and 21st Brigades made an attack in the direction of Menin. On the 19th, the first day of " the Battles of Ypres, 1914," the Division were directed to attack Menin, the Royal Welch Fusiliers becoming very severely engaged near Dadizeele till orders were received for the whole line to retire to Zonnebeke. Further fighting followed, in which the Battalion again suffered serious losses, and by the 22nd only the C.O.,Lieut.-Colonel Cadogan,Capt. Dooner, three Subalterns, the Quartermaster and 206 N.C.O.'s and men were left. There was continuous fighting till the 29th, when the Battalion was placed on the right of the Division near Zandvoorde. When the enemy attacked on the 30th, some cavalry on their right were driven back and the trenches held by the Battalion were enfiladed. As is now known, Capt. Dooner was killed whilst endeavouring to carry an order from his CO. to one of the Companies and his CO., who had seen him fall, was killed in an attempt to go to his assistance. The Quartermaster was now the only survivor out of the thirty-one officers of the Battalion, and he, with the eighty-six N.CO.'s and men who alone remained out of 1,100, became attached to the 2nd Battn. of The Queen's. A private of the Battalion, in a letter to his Vicar, told how the Division had been praised and thanked for their splendid fighting before that last day, how terribly the Regiment had suffered, and how the Colonel and Adjutant and other survivors of the Battalion were surrounded on October 30th. " The Commanding Ofiicer and Adjutant," he wrote, " bore charmed lives, and did splendid work, and were the talk of the Division. They simply laughed at the shells ; what became of them no one can find out." Both Capt. Dooner and Colonel Cadogan were reported as " missing, and it was not till May, 1915, that their death was reported by the German Government through the American Embassy. They had been buried by the Germans in one grave at Zandvoorde, but have since the War been reinterred in the Cemetery at Hooge. Capt. Dooner was mentioned in the Despatch dated January 14th, 1915, and a memorial tablet in the Lady Chapel of Rochester Cathedral, unveiled in 1917, bears the family motto, " Virtutis Gloria Merces."