Died of wounds sustained in action aged 32
Buried in Ypres Town Cemetery Plot E2. 3.
Andrew Edmund Somerset was born in Blackrock Dublin, the eldest son of the 2nd Baron Dunleath of Ballywalter and his wife, Norah Louisa Fanny Ward.
He was educated at Eton, where in the Eton XI of 1901 he made 361 runs with an average of 30.08, but scored only 13 and 18 against Harrow. He came up to Christ Church in 1902, when he played in the Freshmen's match, making 34 and 14, but did not obtain his blue. He had been a member of the M.C.C. since 1908. At Lord's in 1909, he played for Army v. Royal Navy, and in his only innings scored 39.
After Oxford, he joined the Irish Guards. He married on 10 June 1913, Lady Joan Byng daughter of the 5th Earl of Strafford. They had one child, Daphne Norah born on 11 March 1915.
“On the 25th October 1914, after a heavy bombardment, as bombardments were then reckoned, the whole Division was ordered at dawn to advance against Reutel; the 2nd Grenadier Guards and the Irish Guards being given the work of clearing out Polygon Wood, of which the enemy held the upper half.
On the 31st, after an attack by the French towards Hollebeke which did not develop, the full storm broke. In the afternoon the enemy attacked—with rifle-fire and a close-range small piece that broke up our two machine-guns—across some dead ground and occupied the wrecked trench.
“Eventually the 2nd Battalion Grenadiers was sent up with some cavalry of the much-enduring 7th Brigade, and the line of support-trenches was held. The Battalion had had nothing to eat for thirty-six hours, so the cavalry kept the line for a little till our men got food.
“A French regiment (Territorials) on the right also took over part of the trenches of our depleted line. Forty-four men were known to have been killed, 205 wounded and 88—chiefly from the blown-up No. 3 Platoon—were missing. Of officers, Lieutenant K. R. Mathieson had been killed (he had been last seen shooting a Hun who was bayoneting our wounded); Captain Mulholland died of his wounds as soon as he arrived in hospital at Ypres.”
His name is on the MCC Roll of Honour and there is a window to him in the church of Ireland at Ballywalter.