2ND LIEUT. HAROLD LESLIE RAYNER, 9TH BATTN. DEVONSHIRE REGT. KILLED IN ACTION NEAR MAMETZ, JULY 1ST, 1916. AGED 26. At the School 1904—9 (School House), CAPTAIN OF THE SCHOOL 1908—9. 2nd Lieut. H. L. Rayner was the younger son of the late Mr. Edward Rayner, of Beechlands, Wadhurst, Sussex, and of the late Mrs. Rayner, of 116, Marine Parade, Brighton, who died at Tunbridge Wells in 1920. His elder brother. Surgeon Edward Rayner, R.N., M.B. and B.C. Cantab., F.R.C.S. Eng. [S. Eastern College, Ramsgate ; Pembroke College, Cambridge; 1st CI. Nat. Sc. Trip., 1908; Ho. Surg. St. Thomas's Hosp.], served in Gallipolli with the Royal Naval Division R.E., and, being appointed to H.M.S. Vanguard in the autumn of 1916, was killed when the terrible explosion occurred on H.M.S. Vanguard at Scapa Flow on July 9th, 1917. Harold Leslie Rayner came to Tonbridge in September, 1904, from Heddon Court School, having been elected to the Second Entrance Scholarship in the previous June. He soon showed his ability and power, and, being appointed a House Praepostor in September, 1907, became a School Praepostor in 1908, and was Captain of the School 1908—9. He was in the XV. in 1908—9, and rowed 3 in the School IV. in 1908, and stroked it in 1909, in which year he was Captain of the Boats. In 1907, '08 and '09, he was awarded the Prize for Greek Iambics, and in 1909 the Prize for Greek Prose and the Lucas Epigram Prize. He won the 1st Prize in the Upper VI. and the Gold Pen for Classics in 1908, and was bracketed with S. A. Wadsworth for the Upper VI. Prize in 1909. In 1908 he was awarded the first Judd Leaving Exhibition of £75, for Classics, and in the autumn won an Open Classical Scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Oxford he took a First Class in Classical Moderation and a Second in the Final School of Literae Humaniores. He was President of the College Boat Club, and a Sergeant in the University O.T.C., and showed in his whole career at the University the same keenness and force of character that he had shown at School. Indeed, the President of Corpus is recorded to have said of him that he " ran the College." After taking Greats, Rayner spent a year at Oxford, reading Geography, and took the University Certificate with honours. The President of Corpus wrote : " He was an invaluable member of the College, and no one could come across him without appreciating his high character and genuine goodness." The following is from The Pelican, the Corpus Christi College Magazine, of December, 1916:— "The loss of those for whom we have special regard has become so terribly frequent in these days that it seems as though no further loss could add to the bitterness of regret. Yet all who knew H. L. Rayner will have experienced a new shock of sorrow at the news of his death in action. In a pre-eminent degree he won affection and admiration from very different types of men. He had a rare quality of character and a many sided ability that made him the obvious leader of the college ; and there are few men who could have carried his success in scholarship, in athletics, and in college society with such an unaffected modesty, few men whose popularity had so large an element of respect. Those who were at the Bump Supper in 1913 will remember the wonderful enthusiasm with which he was greeted as he rose to speak. " He was naturally reserved, and rarely bared his deepest thoughts, but his friends knew that his mind was as lofty as it was strong, and if he had lived he would have made an honourable name in his chosen work. Tonbridge and Corpus lose in H. L. Rayner a gallant and distinguished son, and England a man of a sort she can ill afford to lose. " (Signed) H. B." In the summer of 1914 he was travelling round the world, but as soon as he returned applied for a commission and was gazetted, December 22nd, 1914, a Temporary 2nd Lieut, in the 9th (Service) Battn. of the Devonshire Regt. His Battalion went out to France in July, 1915, and took the place of a Guards Battn. in the " immortal " 7th Division. It was not long before he and they received their baptism of fire at the Battle of Loos, when his Brigade had the distinction of capturing eight German field guns, two of which have been presented to the city of Exeter. He was one of five officers of the Battalion who came through the ordeal unscathed. Later in the year he was seconded for six weeks or so to command his brigade trench mortar battery, but was " restored to establishment" when the Division left the firing line for rest. He had been on active service for just under a year when the Battle of the Somme commenced. His letters showed that, like the Army generally, he was very optimistic about the coming offensive and the risk of war. " Whatever luck the individual may have," he wrote, " the B.E.F., as a whole, seems bound to win, and likely to give Fritz something to rue and remember." He was killed in action on July 1st, in the first line of the attack near Mametz, and the CO. wrote :— " His death is a great loss to the Regiment, where he was very popular alike with officers and men." The following is from the Chaplain's letter to Mrs. Rayner :— " We all feel that in the loss of your son we have lost not only a fine officer, but a true friend. He died a soldier's death in a great victory which he helped to win." For some three weeks 2nd Lt. Rayner had been in command of his company, during the absence on a course of instruction of his Company Commander, who wrote on July 10th as follows:— " I have been away from the Battalion for about a month and only got back yesterday. We had been practising for the attack for some time before, and I thought that I should have been with them. Harold and I were originally to have gone over the top together. But I was kept back, and Harold led my company instead. He was the first man to get out of the trench. He had reached the third line of German trenches when he was hit by a bullet in the body. One of the men who was by him carried him to a shell hole and laid him there. He seemed to be in no pain, and spoke several times to the man with him. After a little while he fell asleep, and the man thinks he died soon afterwards in no pain. It must have happened about 8 o'clock in the morning. He was buried with his men and many friends of his and mine in our old first line trench, which he and I used to hold last April. " I cannot tell you how much we miss him. especially the men whom he so splendidly led. I cannot tell you what his help has meant to me; he and I have been in so many tight places. But I would like you to know this— that there was no other Battalion in the Army that attacked so magnificently or was so heroically led as the 9th Devons. They went into and through fire that could hardly have been more terrible, and everywhere they won through to their objective even when the officers were gone. I know that Harold would not have wished to have died otherwise than in leading such men in the way that he did." As one of his greatest friends at School and at the University, now a Master at Shrewsbury, has written, " He was just steel and gold"; and after speaking of the temptation to allow the sense of personal loss to predominate, he goes on, " He has given freely, and instead of grieving we should exclaim, like Old Siward in Macbeth—I was reading the passage with a Form in School this morning—'Why, then, God's soldier be he!"