MAJOR WILLIAM HAMMOND SMITH, 52ND BRIGADE, R.F.A. KILLED IN ACTION AT ATHIES, NEAR ROEUX, IN THE BATTLES OF ARRAS, APRIL 12TH, 1917. AGED 31. At the School 1899—1900 (School House). Capt. W. H. Smith was the third son of the late Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and of Mrs, Charles Smith, of Belvoir Terrace, Cambridge. He was only at Tonbridge for a year, from September, 1899, to July, 1900, when he left from the Lower Fifth and went to Blundell's School, Tiverton. He went up to Sidney in 1904 with an Open Classical Exhibition, and also gained a College Exhibition and graduated in 1907, taking a 1st Div., Second Class, in the Classical Tripos. Both at School and at College he was a keen athlete and gained his oar in the College Boat, in which he rowed 7, in June, 1905. He became an artist by profession and was regarded as an exceedingly promising painter. One of his works, a portrait, is in the Guildhall at Cambridge. On the outbreak of war he at once applied for a commission through the University O.T.C.and was gazetted to a Temporary Commission in the R.F.A., August 26th, 1914. After eight months' training he went to the Front and was through much of the heaviest fighting, was promoted Temporary Lieutenant September 12th, 1915, and Captain February 13th, 1916, and was twice mentioned in Despatches, in January, 1916, and in January, 1917. In 1915 he served at Festubert and elsewhere in the La Bassee Sector, and then opposite the Hohenzollern Redoubt before and during the Battle of Loos, which began on September 25th. His Battery was then transferred to the Ypres Sector, where they experienced severe fighting, especially opposite Hill " 60." In 1916 they suffered heavily in the neighbourhood of Montauban in the Battle of Albert, the first of the Battles of the Somme, and after a rest took part in the Battles of the Le Transloy Ridges and of the Ancre Heights in October and November. In December, 1916, they were in the Arras Sector. He had been for most of 1916 in command of the Battery, and in December, 1916, though suffering from bronchitis, refused to go into hospital till they were out of action. He had been detailed for a special course in gunnery, and having with difficulty obtained his discharge from hospital arrived home on Christmas Eve. On completing this course he returned to the Front, and had been Acting Major in command of the Battery for some time. On April 12th, 1917, towards the end of the first Battle of the Scarpe in the " Battles of Arras, 1917," he was watching an attack and directing his Battery from an observation post at Athies, near Roeux, when a large German shell burst close by and a splinter entered his head, rendering him immediately unconscious, and he died before reaching the Dressing Station. He was buried near Athies. His Colonel wrote:— " I feel hia loss very keenly, not only as the loss of a capable officer, but as the loss of a friend whose charming manners had endeared him to all of us, officers and men. No one could have thought less of personal danger than he did, and I cannot help wishing that he had been a little more careful of himself, even at the expense of the observation he was engaged in, for he had been exposing himself fearlessly ia an attempt to locate the position reached by our infantry, and this undoubtedly drew the fire which was the cause of his death." The following appeared in the Cambridge local paper:— " His death will be deeply regretted by a wide circle of friends at Cambridge and elsewhere, for he was a man of a lovable disposition, combined with high intellectual attainments and lofty ideals."