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Percy StrahanPercy Strahan was born in Simla, India, on 1 February 1874. His father, Lieutenant G. Strahan of Bengal, sent Percy to England for his education, boarding at a school in Alvescot, Oxfordshire, run by a Strahan relative. An Army career followed, with Percy being commissioned into the 1st Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment on 4 August 1900 and probably joining it immediately in South Africa for the Boer War. After hostilities ceased he was transferred to the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Garrison Regiment in Malta from which, on 25 July 1903, Lieutenant Percy Strahan married Beatrice Ferens at St Mary's, Huxham, Devon, a wedding hastily arranged to allow him to return to his regiment. He completed his first military career in South Africa, where the reservists of the Royal Garrison Regiment had taken over from Regular line regiments. By 1911 Captain Strahan had retired from the Army and was living with Beatrice in Hereford Road, Paddington, and engaged in the motor trade.
Recommissioned into the 8th (Service) Battalion of the Border Regiment for the war, on 3 November 1914 Percy was appointed Temporary Major, the battalion forming at Carlisle as part of the Third New Army raised by Lord Kitchener. By 27 September 1915 they had landed at Boulogne and were then engaged in action on the Western Front, including Vimy Ridge, Albert, and Pozières in 1916; Messines and Pilckem in 1917 and St Quentin, Bapaume, Messines, and Bailleul in 1918. Although we cannot be sure that Major Strahan took part in these actions, he was mentioned in Sir Douglas Haig's despatch of 9 April 1917, which would have covered the operations on the Ancre during the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line. Percy was later awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. Percy Strahan became the Commandant of the German prisoners of war camp associated with the gravel workings at Frampton in March 1918, living with his wife, Beatrice, on The Green where they were included in both the spring and autumn electoral registers of 1919, Percy as a military voter. The Strahans integrated into local society, counting the Clifford and Darell families among their friends. Afterwards they settled at Sirmoor Lodge, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex. Percy Strahan's service during the war has not been remembered on the plaque in Frampton Village Hall. |