CAPTAIN RICHARD POWELL
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
22ND AUGUST 1917 AGE 31
BURIED: MONT HUON MILITARY CEMETERY, LE TREPOT, FRANCE
Yesterday's casualty came from Siberia to fight, today's returned from Ceylon. I don't know what he was doing in Ceylon but it's a fair guess that he was a tea planter.
Richard Powell - his name was Richard despite the fact that the War Graves Commission has him as Captain C Powell - was born in Munslow, Shropshire, the eldest son of the rector George Bather Powell whose family had held the living since 1776, and continued to hold it until Richard Powell's brother, Edward, resigned it in 1965.
It's a curious inscription for a rector to choose for his son - 'Late of Ceylon' - no mention of God, no quote from the bible, nor from a hymn. It crossed my mind that perhaps Richard Powell, his father's eldest son, had made it clear that the religious life of his ancestors was not for him. If he did it doesn't appear to have caused any lasting animosity since a brass plaque in St Michael's Church, Munslow, links him firmly to his home:
Richard Powell, Captain RFA
And of Ceylon, Eldest son of
Rev GB Powell, Rector of this Parish
Was wounded in Flanders 4th August 1917
And died in hospital at Le Trepot
France, 22nd August 1917