Key Information
Name: Maurice George Trousdell
DoB: December 16 1883
Regt: Captain Army Service Corps
DoD: August 6 1917
Academic Career: CGS 1894 – 1900
Other: Son of Capt. W. B. P . Trousdell, Cobtree,Boxley, Maidstone, Kent. Head Master’s Scholar, 1895. In the Standard Bank of S. Africa, Nairobi, British East Africa.
Biographical Information
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[toggle title=”Family Background”]Family Background: Maurice was one of 15 children born to Captain William Blakeney Persse Trousdell and his wife Ellen Philippa Louisa nee Whatman. In the 1891 census Captain Trousdell is described as a retired cavalry officer, landowner and farmer. Three of Maurice’s brothers also attended Carlisle grammar school. All four served during the Great War: Hugh and Charles were in Nigeria; John in India; and Maurice was fighting in Belgium. Hugh was drowned in 1915 when the ship he was travelling on, the Falaba, was torpedoed. [/toggle]
[toggle title=”Academic Record”]Academic Record: Maurice played in the school’s Rugby team in 1899 and the cricket team in 1900. In 1899 he was awarded the football shield and he played “Snug” in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream“.
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[toggle title=”War Service”]War Service:
Maurice Trousdell joined the Royal Army Service Corps and was appointed a lieutenant in the 436th Company of the Guards Division Train. This Company was responsible for bringing supplies by rail from the ports to an advanced supply depot and transhipping the supplies onto lorries for movement to the front. In 1917, now promoted to captain, he was stationed at the advanced supply depot at International Corner, near Eykhock in Belgium, organising the shipment of supplies from trains to lorries for the front. On August 6 1917 a German aeroplane dropped a bomb – a rare event – on the depot killing Maurice, wounding another officer and two service men, one of whom died later from his wounds. Maurice is buried in the Canada Farm Cemetery, West Vlaanderen, Belgium. He was 33 years old.
There is a Memorial to him and his brother Hugh at Boxley in Kent, where the family had lived. The family had “christ’s faithful soldier and servant” inscribed on his gravestone.[/toggle]
[toggle title=”Battalion”]Battalion:Royal Army Service Corps[/toggle]
[toggle title=”Other”]Other:MGT – open this for further information
Michael Riordan _ Archivist at Queen’s
James Stewart Rattray – relative[/toggle]
[toggle title=”Sources”]Sources:
a) Carlisle School Memorial Register 1264-1924
b) Census: 1881 RG11/900; 1891 RG12/691; 1901
c) The Old Carliol : Vol X 68 July 1896; Vol X 66 Dec 1895; Vol XI 73 May 1898
d) Liber Vitae Reginensium (Queen’s College Oxford)
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