Biography:
Dudley Hurst-Brown was born 8 June 1897, the youngest son of William Hurst-Brown and Ethel Mary, nee Coles. An elder brother, Kenneth (formerly Alfred) Hurst-Brown (F 1906-1911) was prevented by illness from serving in the First World War but another brother, Cecil, educated at Westminster, was killed in action at Loos in September 1915.
Dudley Brown came to Winchester College from Cordwalles School in Maidenhead in September 1911 and was in F House, Hawkins'. He served in the OTC and had intended to go up to Oxford in the autumn of 1914 and to enter the Army through the University, but on the outbreak of war he immediately volunteered. However, he was only 16 years old at the time and the Army was slow to process his application, prompting his father to write to the Director of Military Training at the War Office to speed his application. He was eventually posted to the 1st Reserve Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.
He went to France at the beginning of 1915, and saw five months' heavy fighting, being involved in preparations for the operation known as First Bellewaarde on 16 June 1915 and shelling enemy positions on Hill 60 and 'The Caterpillar'.
Dudley died of wounds sustained at Dickebusch, in the Ypres Salient, on 15 June 1915, a few days after his eighteenth birthday. Reports at the time stated that he had been wounded on 15 June, but the unit war diary makes it clear that he was 'very dangerously wounded' on 13 June. In a letter written shortly before his death, Hurst-Brown stated that he was glad that he was at the front, despite the ferocity of the fighting, but did not expect to survive.