REMEMBERING DEAR REGY
LIEUTENANT
THE HON. WILLIAM REGINALD WYNDHAM
Regiment:
1st Life Guards
Service
No: Officer
Date
& place of birth: 16 March 1876, Petworth, Sussex
Date
& place of death: 6 November 1914, Belgium
With
much thanks to June Clark ( of Swansea) for taking a photograph of Regy's
grave, a few years ago, at Zillebeke Cemetery.
Always
Known as ‘Regy’ or ‘ Reggie’ he fought in the Boer War as well as the First
World War.
He
was born in Petworth House the son of the 2nd Lord and Lady Leconfield. He was
the third youngest of seven children. He was in the 17th Lancers and in the
Boer War from 1899 to 1902 he was given the Queen’s Medal with three clasps.
He
left the army after a riding accident in 1903. He farmed in East Africa, then
moved to the Rockies,
He
eventually returning to
Regy
never married, although he was deemed a possible husband for the Honourable
Gwyneth Ericka Morgan, ( 1895-1924), Lord Tredegar's wayward daughter, they were
linked not so much in romance but a family arrangement that would have given
Gwyneth a life of dignified obscurity.
In
his Will Regy left £3000 to the officers of the 17th Lancers for the promotion
of sport in the regiment, and his collection of stuffed hunting trophies to the
Borough of Grantham. There was a rumoured romantic link between Regy and an
American woman Phyllis Langhorne, one of the five daughters of C D Langhorne of
Greenwoods, VA. She had married a
“The war is sad….So many nice men gone! “
Letter of Charles Whibley, Scholar and Critic referring to Regy Wyndham.(2018)
“Poor Reggie Wyndham fell by my side shot through the heart.“
George Fisher Baker, a biography. ( 1938)
Bless him.
