Lieutenant Anthony Herbert Strutt

Army Number: n/a

Battalion: 16th Battalion Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derbys) Regiment.

Son of George Herbert  Strutt (O.H.), D.L., J.P. for Derbyshire,  and  Edith Adela Strutt of Makeney House, near Derby. Educated at Harrow School, London and Trinity College, Cambridge. Lieutenant Strutt joined the Inns of Court O.T.C. early in 1915 and subsequently obtained a commission in the Sherwood Foresters. He went to France with his Regiment in March 1916 and was promoted to Lieutenant on 20th July 1916. He went through most of the Somme fighting of that year but was invalided home with trench fever in December 1916. After a period of home service, chiefly at Sunderland, he returned to the Front in October 1917 and again saw a great deal of fighting.
In March 1918, he had ten days’ leave and went back to France just as the great enemy offensive began on March 21st. His Battalion suffered severely; he was gassed early in the fighting and, on April 16th, was wounded in the ear, but continued on duty. On April 27th, 1918, while in command of his Company, he was standing outside a dug-out in the ruined village of Vermoozeele, when a shell exploded very near him, and a fragment hit him on the thigh and unfortunately severed the main artery. He was attended to quickly but was unconscious from the time he was hit till the time of his death a little later. Died, 27th April 1918, aged 22.

All his brother-officers except one had been killed, but his newly-appointed Colonel wrote:—

” He was liked and respected by both Officers and men. He had had a particularly strenuous time, both on the Somme, and up here, and was feeling pretty bad, but he had done particularly fine work, and most certainly would have obtained a decoration, had he lived.”

Buried: Brandhoek New Military Cemetery No.3, Belgium. Plot 4. Row A. Grave 5.

Lieutenant Anthony Herbert Strutt is also commemorated on the following war memorials:-
Harrow School War Memorial, Harrow, London.
Belper War Memorial, Belper, Derbyshire.
Belper and Milford Book of Remembrance (St. John the Heritage Centre), Belper, Derbyshire.
Trinity College Cambridge War Memorial, Cambridge.