Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Magniac, DSO

MAGNIAC, MEREDITH

• Rank: Lieutenant Colonel
• Date of Death: 25/04/1917
• Age: 36
• Regiment/Service: Lancashire Fusiliers 1st Bn.
• Awards: D S O
• Grave Reference: B. 4.
• Cemetery: BEAURAINS ROAD CEMETERY, BEAURAINS
• Additional Information: Son of the late Maj. Gen. F. L. Magniac and of Mrs. Magniac, of Coombe Cot, Abbotsham, Devon, husband of Winifred E. Magniac, of The Austen, Rye, Sussex. His brother Erskine Magniac also fell.
• CWGC

Medal Index Card shows

• qualifying date for 1914-15 Star as 15 June 1915 at Gallipoli,
• oak leaf emblem for three Mentions in Dispatches as Captain,
• British War and Victory medals plus the DSO as Lt Col.

Magniac, Meredith of 28 Kensington Mansions, Middlesex DSO, lieutenant colonel His Majesty's Army died 25 April 1917 in France on active service. Administration (with Will) London 7 July to Winifred Ethel Magniac, widow. Effects: £2,532 11s 5d

Meredith Magniac was born 27 June 1880 at Hitchin in Hertfordshire; the son of Maj Gen and Mrs. F L Magniac. Educated at Clifton College and Sandhurst

He lead 1st Lancs Fusiliers on 1 July in their attack on Beaumont Hamel.

He was a successful cricketer, playing for the MCC and his Regiment in India, in a test match in South Africa in 1904, and landed with the Fusiliers at Gallipoli when they won six VCs before breakfast.

He was killed in April 1917 at Arras by shell fire near Monchy le Preux.

Lieutenant Colonel Meredith Magniac, DSO, Lancashire Fusiliers, 3rd son of the late Major General Francis Lane Magniac and of Mrs Magniac, of Clifton, Bristol was killed on April 24 aged 36. He was educated at Clifton College and was in the school eleven. He was gazetted to the Lancashire Fusiliers and subsequently passed into the Staff College at Quetta. Soon after the outbreak of war he relinquished a Staff appointment as Brigade Major in Ireland, and went to Gallipoli as a Staff Captain.

He was in both evacuations, and was awarded the DSO. In March 1916 he went to the Front in command of his Battalion and saw considerable fighting, being Mentioned in Dispatches last July. A brother officer writes: - "He was, of course, in the front line with his men. I do not think there was an officer in the Division who did not admire and respect the colonel, and not an officer or man in the battalion who did not love him. He was the finest soldier I ever met, a strong man, a born leader, and a very gallant gentleman" He married Winifred Ethel Sayres on 12 February 1916, who survives him.

His younger brother Lt Col Erskine Magniac, 27th Punjabis, Indian Army was killed just three days later, in Mesopotamia, on 28th April 1917 at an outpost on the Euphrates, being shot in the head by Arabs.

Reference: IN MEMORY OF THE OFFICERS AND MEN FROM RYE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THE GREAT WAR MCMXIV – MCMXIX (1914-1919)

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