2nd Lieut Cyril Aubrey Peters

• Age: 22
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Wednesday 4th July 1917
• Commemorated at: Perth Cem Zillebeke
  Panel Ref: II.A.43

Cyril Aubrey was born at 18 Mulliner Street, Wavertree, Liverpool on 24^th November 1894 and was baptised on 24 January 1895 at Lodge Lane Chapel, Liverpool. His parents Edward Henry Peters and his wife  Dora (nee Done) had married in Ellesmere, Shropshire, in 1887. His father was born in Liverpool and his mother in Flintshire. Cyril had an older sister, Vera. Another son, William, died in infancy.

In 1901 the family is living at 34 Tunstall Street. His father is a Chief Inspector, City Police.

In 1911 his parents and sister Vera are living at 64 Brookdale Road in Wavertree. His father is retired from the police. Cyril is a boarder/inmate  at the Caledonian Christian Association, 24 Guilford Street, Russell Square, London W.C. He is 16 years old, and a boy clerk in the civil service

Cyril had begun his Civil Service career in 1910 when he was registered as a Temporary Boy Clerk (London Gazette, June 3, 1910). In 1912 he was appointed, after open competition, as Assistant Clerk (Abstractor) in the National Health Insurance Commission (London Gazette 1 November 1912).  In 1914 he was promoted as a Second Division Clerk in the Office of Works (Edinburgh Gazette, April 7, 1914).

Cyril enlisted on 26/05/1915 joining the Honourable Artillery Company as Private 3572 giving his address as 16 Willcott Road, Acton Hill, Acton. He was commissioned as a Temporary 2^nd Lieutenant in the 17^th Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment on 19 December 1916 (London Gazette, 25 January 1917).  According to the battalion War Diary, Second Lieutenant C.A. Peters reported for duty on 19/2/1917. The battalion was then in front line trenches near Arras.

“On 8^th March 1917 an enemy raiding party entered our trenches after a bombardment and captured 4 men.” “2/Lieut. Peters arrived at the head of ‘George Street’ within five minutes of the barrage opening. The Germans had then retired. They were not in the line more than five minutes.”  Senior officers submitted reports on the incursion into the battalion trenches, the capture of sentries, and the loss of a Lewis gun. Major General Shea personally investigated the case and reported that 2/Lieut. Peters, in his opinion, did well.

By June 1917 the battalion had transferred to the Ypres salient. Cyril was killed attempting to rescue Lieutenant Aiden Chavasse, who had been fatally wounded and failed to return from a reconnaissance patrol. (Lt. Chavasse was the brother of Capt. Noel Chavasse R.A.M.C., M.C., V.C. and Bar, who died a month after Aiden. Their father was the Bishop of Liverpool.)  From the battalion War Diary,

“Battalion in Front Line Trenches. 4/7/1917 12:15 a.m.  Lieutenant A. Chavasse and 8 other ranks left our trenches to patrol German Front Line, with the object of ascertaining disposition of enemy, obtaining identification, and killing occupants. This patrol, on nearing enemy wire, encountered a German patrol, which opened fire on them, wounding Lt. Chavasse.  Our patrol withdrew to our lines. Lieut. Chavasse was missing, and Capt. A.I. Draper, Capt. C.E. Torrey, Capt. F.B. Chavasse, R.A.M.C. [a third Chavasse brother], 2/Lieut. C.A. Peters,  L/Cpl H. Dixon (11531) searched No Man’s Land for him.  During the search, Capt. C.E. Torrey was wounded, and taken into our trenches. 2/Lt. C.A. Peters and L/Cpl Dixon discovered Lt. Chavasse in a shell hole; 2/Lt Peters was killed when returning to our lines for assistance to carry the wounded officer in, L/Cpl Dixon remaining to bandage his wounds. After awaiting the arrival of the necessary assistance, L/Cpl Dixon returned for stretcher bearers to carry Lt. Chavasse in, but, on going back, the party were unable to find the officer, and had to retire on account of the dawn breaking…. The body of 2/Lieut. Peters was carried to our lines by another party.”

Cyril was 22 years of age when he was killed.

He now rests at Perth Cemetery,(China Wall) Zillebeke where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“THE EVENING OF HIS LIFE WAS THE MORNING”
 
The cemetery was begun by French troops in November 1914 (the French graves were removed after the Armistice) and adopted by the 2nd Scottish Rifles in June 1917. It was called Perth (as the predecessors of the 2nd Scottish Rifles were raised in Perth), China Wall (from the communication trench known as the Great Wall of China), or Halfway House Cemetery. The cemetery was used for front line burials until October 1917 and contained 130 graves. It was not used again until after the Armistice, when graves were brought in from the battlefields and smaller cemeteries around Ypres.  There are now 1,426 WW1 Commonwealth burials in the cemetery.

Details of how Cyril was killed was provided in a letter sent home to his father and reported as follows: 

KILLED TRYING TO SAVE THE BISHOP'S SON

A letter received from a captain in the King's Liverpool Regiment, serving in France, pays a high tribute to the late Second-Lieutenant Peters, an "old boy" of the Holt School, Liverpool, whose death at the front was recorded last week, and at the same time throws a little further light on how the missing son of the Bishop of Liverpool, Lieutenant Chevasse was wounded. Lieutenant Peters' captain, in a letter to his father writes:-

I am very sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings to you but I can only hope that my letter will arrive before you receive an official telegram from the War Office to inform you that the young boy, Lieutenant Cyril Peters, has been killed in action. 

It is it is very hard for me because, while I realise what this means to you, to me also the loss is very hard to bear. But I know you will find some consolation in hearing that like his generous nature, he did in the truest sense of the words, lay down his life for his friend.

Another officer named Chavasse, who is a son of the Bishop of Liverpool, had been out on patrol and had been badly wounded close to the Bosch wire. Your boy went out with some other men to try and find him and bring him in. This was a very delicate business, and after being successful in finding Chavasse, your boy insisted on coming back himself to get a stretcher. On his way back he was hit by a chance, shot in the head and killed instantaneously. We were able to recover his body and he was buried last night by the padre.

I feel his loss more deeply, for, though young in years he was the most reliable fellow one could wish for. Give him any instructions and I had no need to worry further, and his men, I know only too well, were devoted to him. He was typical of Britain and all our national ideals, and no one could have had a better officer, and had he lived he would have been bound to attain very high honours. But in the few months he was with us he has left to us a very great memory, and his death, while so severe in wordly ways, was the most supreme instance of his disregard for his own safety and his care for others.

Cyril is commemorated on the following Memorials:

HM Office of Works WW1 Tablet, Westminster,

United Reform Church Honours Board, Acton, London.

Holt School, Childwall, Liverpool. (now situated at Childwall Sports and Science Academey)

Grateful thanks are extended to Angie Evans for permission to use the photograph of Cyril Peters who was her Grandmother's cousin. 

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