Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1914, Lieutenant Ronald Andrew Colquhoun Aitchison, 1st Battalion, the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, died at Armentieres on the French-Belgian border, from wounds received in action earlier that day.

The only son of Lieutenant Colonel Gowrie Colquhoun Aitchison, the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), he was educated at Charterhouse and was a member of the school’s Rifle Corps, as well as playing on the cricket and football teams. After attending the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst he was commissioned into the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in September of 1913.

At the outbreak of the Great War, his battalion joined the British Expeditionary Force as part of the 12th Brigade, landing at Boulogne on the 23rd of August, 1914. Lieutenant Aitchison saw action at Cambrai three days later, and went on to fight in the battles of the Marne and the Aisne, before being promoted to Lieutenant on the 15th of November. At that time he was recommended for accelerated promotion to Captain.

On the day of his death Lieutenant Aitchison was wounded during the fighting near Armentieres, and died several hours later. He was buried in the Le Bizet Convent Military Cemetery near Armentières, and then in 1920 was re-buried in the Strand Military Cemetery, Ploegsteerte, Belgium.

Ronald, born in Chapel-en-le Frith, Derbyshire, but raised in Cwm y glo, Llanug, Caernarvonshire, was 19 years old.