Herbert Ronald Farrar

Key Information

Name: Herbert Ronald Farrar
DoB:  July 25 1887
Regt:
3rd Batt. Leicester Regt.
DoD: December 24 1914
Academic Career: CGS 1897-8   Dulwich Coll., 1898-1906. Queens’ Coll., Cambridge, 1906; B. A., 1910. Master in a Preparatory School.

Biographical Information:

  • Herbert Ronald Farrar was the son of a vicar; the Rev. Herbert W. Farrar, of St. James’, Carlisle. Herbert Farrar Senior (known as Bill) was also the son of a vicar (Wesley Farrar) and had been born in Norfolk but was living in Durham by the time of the 1871 Census and then in Barrow (1881), Durham (1891) and London (1901). Vicars do tend to be moved around a lot! “Ronald was born at South Shields, County Durham, the second child of the Rev. Farrar’s second marriage, to Florence Margaret Town. He had two sisters, May Renny Annandah (born 1886) and Winifred Margaret (born 1888). He also had a younger brother, Sydney Gelder Farrar (born 1892), who also served as a Second Lieutenant during the Great War.” Interestingly, young Ronald was living with his maternal grandmother, Florence Margaret Town, when he was three years old. Annandale Town had been a Master Partner in a Paper Mills Firm. His grandmother was living at 64 Jesmond Road, Jesmond, near Newcastle. She was a widow, “of independent means”, and shared her house with three grown up children, a cook and a housemaid. Ronald’s time with his grandmother was perhaps because his father was chaplain to the Mission to Seamen on the Tyne. “Ronald moved with his family to Carlisle in 1893, when his father was appointed vicar there. In 1898 his father was appointed Superintendent Chaplain to the Missions to Seamen, this meant a move south to Dalmore Road, West Dulwich, South East London, and Ronald was enrolled at Dulwich College, arriving in May, in time for the start of the summer term. By spring 1901, the family had moved to Thurlow Park Road, Lambeth, where every family had a housemaid and cook. His younger brother Sydney joined him at Dulwich College in 1905, the year before Ronald left in April 1906.