Cyril William Winterbotham

Cyril Winterbotham was born on 27th February 1887 at the family home Cranley Lodge, Wellington Square, Cheltenham, the youngest son and fifth child of Alderman James Batten Winterbotham and his Australian wife, Eliza Hunter MacLaren Winterbotham. His father was a Solicitor and partner of the Cheltenham law practice – Winterbotham, Gurney and Company – and was prominent in local town and county politics.

After an education at Cheltenham College and Lincoln College Oxford, where he read law, Cyril became a Barrister in London. It was predicted that Cyril would have a brilliant political career and this was started when he was adopted in September 1913 as the Liberal Party’s parliamentary candidate for the Cirencester Division.

Cyril was appointed to a Territorial Force Commission as a 2nd Lieutenant on 26th September 1914, having initially enrolled in the Officers’ Training Corps at the Inns of Court London. He was posted for active service with the 1/5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment in March 1915. The men of this battalion were the first uniformed soldiers to leave Cheltenham the day after war had been declared on 5th August 1914.

The battalion first took over trenches in the front line in the Ploegsteert Wood Sector in April 1915. Cyril was promoted to Lieutenant on 10th June 1915.

On 26th August 1916 the battalion was based in the front line trenches to the north of Ovillers-la-Boiselle and to the south east of Thiepval in the Somme sector. The next day the battalion attacked and captured a Prussian trench near Mouquet Farm, taking a machine gun and over 90 prisoners of the Prussian Guard Regiment. However, the cost was high for on this day not only did Cyril Winterbotham lose his life but in the same trench 2nd Lieutenant Charles Brien, Privates Edward Keen and Ernest King – all four from Cheltenham – were killed. The battalion adjutant, whose job it was to write the report of the battle, was Cyril’s brother Percy. He had to report the death of his own brother.

In total in this battle all the officers were either killed or wounded and three quarters of the men didn’t survive.

It was left to a Cheltenham man, Company Sergeant Major William Tibbles, to take over and lead the remaining men. For this brave action Tibbles received the Military Cross. During the month of August 1916 the battalion lost 54 men, 428 wounded and more than 95 missing in action.

The battalion erected a wooden cross over the trench where Winterbotham, two other Gloucestershire officers and six men died. A pen and ink sketch of the cross was made and sent to Cyril’s mother who published it in the Gloucestershire Echo on 3rd August 1918. The cross was sent back to Cheltenham in 1925 and was placed in the cemetery until 1945 when Cyril’s sister Clara, in her third term as Mayor of Cheltenham, had the cross replaced and asked for a record to be made of all the remaining wooden trench crosses in the cemetery. This cross has been the centre cross of the 22 original crosses for the last 74 years.

Cyril is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial along with others with no known grave; Cheltenham war memorial, Gloucester Cathedral, Cheltenham College, St. Paul’s Church and Holy Trinity Church.

Cyril was a minor war poet and it is ironic that his poignant poem The Cross of Wood, detailing how a trench cross was an important as any brass medal, was published in the Cheltenham Chronicle the day before he died. A war memorial painting was commissioned by the Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum Committee in 1919, the chairman of which was Councillor Clara Winterbotham, sister of Cyril. It is no surprise that Cyril is at the forefront of the painting as is their brother Percy.