LIEUTENANT COLONEL JULIAN FALVEY BEYTS
DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY
5TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 29
BURIED: NEW IRISH FARM CEMETERY, YPRES, BELGIUM
Lieutenant Colonel Julian Falvey Beyts commanded the 15th Battalion Durham Light Infantry from 3 March 1917 until his death on 5 October that year. For a man who had only been a twenrty-three-year-old second lieutenant in November 1914 he had done well achieving not only promotion but the award of a DSO.
On 4 October 1917, the battalion took part in the 21st Division's attack on Broodseinde Ridge. A German bombardment before the attack began reduced their ranks to two companies. Nevertheless, later in the day, the reduced battalion succeeded in braking up a German counter-attack at Cameron Copse.
Falvey Beyt was killed the next day, 5 October, in another German counter-attack. There are no further details of his deathh. His body was recovered from an unmarked grave at map reference J.15.c.3.7. in April 1921 and identified by a star and crown and his name on a handkerchief.
Julian Falvey Beyts was born in India, the only son of George Falvey Beyts, District Engineer on the East India Railway. Educated at Loretto School, there is no information about his post-school career. He married Hannah Cole, who was 43 to his 26, on 19 August 1914, two weeks after the outbreak of war. It was she who chose his inscription.