MAJOR GUY WINTERBOTTOM
DERBYSHIRE YEOMANY
9TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 27
BURIED: STRUMA MILITARY CEMETERY, DENMARK
Guy Winterbottom was the second son of William Dickson Winterbottom, the millionaire owner of the Winterbottom Book Cloth Company, which dominated the US and UK book-cloth markets. Reading between the lines, I rather think that William Winterbottom may have dominated his family too. His eldest son Archibald, aged 25, married an American divorcee, four years older than himself. His father had forbidden the marriage but Archibald went ahead and married his wife in Scotland - a marriage they both later appeared to regret. It was several months before Archibald told his father.
Guy was 22 when he got married. Educated at Eton he was a gentleman farmer in Derbyshire when the war broke out. A member of the Derbyshire Yeomanry, he volunteered for foreign service on the outbreak of war.
The regiment served in Gallipoli where it received heavy casualties at Scimitar Hill. It then moved to Salonika in February 1916. Winterbottom was killed by a long-range shell whilst on patrol. He is elaborately commemorated in the church of St John, Aston on Trent by a three-light stained glass window and a marble monument, which reads:
In
Loving memory of
Major Guy Winterbottom
Derbyshire Yeomanry
2nd Son of Lt. Col.
William Dickson Winterbottom
of Aston Hall, Derby,
Killed in action
on the Salonika Front, Aug 9 1917
Aged 27 years.
This tablet is dedicated
By his father, wife
and step mother.
His last words were
"I have tried to do my best.
God's will be
Done."
Despite the fact that Guy Winterbottom had been married for five years it was his father who chose his inscription, paying tribute to the son who was a 'gallant soldier', awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle 4th Class, 'a sportsman' who played polo and regularly rode to hounds, a 'model husband & a good son'.