Killed in action aged 37
no known grave

Leonard Vale was born at Highfield, Uppingham, the younger son of Rev. William Vale Bagshawe, of Moorlands, Calver, Sheffield, formerly Assistant Master at Repton School, Master of the Uppingham Lower School, Vicar of Isel and Rector of Pitchford, and his wife, Alice Katharine, daughter of Edward Otto Partridge.

Leonard was educated at Lower School, Uppingham, Shrewsbury, and Christ Church, Oxford. He was a keen and successful all-round sportsman rowing in the College Eight and representing Christ Church in the crew which competed for both Thames and Ladies at Henley in 1897. They were beaten in the semi-final of the Ladies Plate by Emmanuel, and in the final of the Thames Cup by Kingston, after a good race.

After taking his degree he entered the service of the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation, and later became one of their forest managers. He was home on leave when the war broke out and, with three other members of the company’s staff, applied at once for a commission in the King’s Own Scottish Borderers.

He was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant on 30 August 1914, joined up on 18 December 1914, and promoted Lieutenant on 9 November following. He trained at Portland and Sunderland, left with a draft on 4 December, and was attached to the 1st Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers near Ypres, where, having acted as Captain of his company for several months, he was gazetted to that rank in May 1915. He was killed in action at Hooge, in Flanders, 16 June 1915.

de Ruvigny's The Roll of Honour, part 1, page 14

Lieutenant Edward Partridge wrote from Ypres: “His example enabled his men to carry the position and retain it against counter attacks, and they all speak so highly of his pluck and resource,” and Private Pike, Northumberland Fusiliers, from the Base Hospital at Sheffield: "I was with your son when he got killed in the great charge at Hooge, near Ypres, on 16 June. I was very proud to be led by such a brave and noble man — for he led the company as if he were in the streets of England.

Captain Bagshawe and his men were in the fighting in March at St. Eloi, St. Julien, and Hill 60. One night he had 18 men in a trench which was shelled by the Germans preparatory to an attack; 16 men were killed or wounded, Captain Bagshawe mounted the parapet and fired into the attacking enemy. He and his two men held the trench through the night, until daylight caused the Germans to relinquish the attack.”

The adjutant of his Battalion said “He was as popular with his men as with the officers. He was from the first in a responsible position, which he filled with great energy and tact. We were attacking, and I heard that he got into the first line of the enemy’s trenches, and I think he was hit in the actual assault. He will have been buried close to where he fell, which is just south of the Ypres-Roulers Railway, about three miles east of Ypres.

His Estate amounted to £167.4.7d. Probate granted to Edgar Joseph Holberton

His name is on the memorial situated inside the Chapel of St Peter's Church, Edensor, Derbyshire, and on that of the Bombay Burma Trading Corporation in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Rangoon, Burma. The oak cover of the marble font in the church of St. Margaret, Wormhill near Buxton was presented in his memory; his family having been connected with Wormhill for many centuries.

 

Acknowledgement de Ruvigny's The Roll of Honour, part 1, page 14.