Biography:
Lawrence Peel was born 18 September 1884, the son of William Peel of Knowlmere Manor, Clitheroe, Yorks. His mother was Meliora Sybella, daughter of Henry Phillpotts (Comomer 1819, then College 1820). He was one of four brothers, all of whom were Wykehamists.
He came to Winchester College from Horris Hill in January 1898 and was in C House, Du Boulay's. He became a House Prefect and played for OTH VI in 1901.
Lawrence left Winchester in the summer of 1902 for RMC to Sandhurst and passed out with distinction in 1903, being gazetted to the 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. He served for several years in India and South Africa and became Adjutant of his battalion in 1907.
At the outbreak of war he was with his regiment in Guernsey and proceeded to the front within a few weeks in command of the Divisional Cyclist Company of the 7th Division. Cyclist companies began to be formed in the summer of 1914. Their primary task was reconnaissance. However, once trench warfare set in they took on numerous other tasks: manning observation posts, traffic control, sniping, repairing trenches, helping to set up divisional schools – the division’s ‘odd job men’.
Peel was mentioned in one of Lord French's earliest Despatches but he was reported missing on the night of 23/24 October 1914, after an attempt to capture some farm buildings on the Zaanvoorde Ridge near the Ypres-Menin Road. Peel's place of burial is unknown but he is commemorated on Panel 33 of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.
Captain Peel married the Hon. Ethel Laura Brooks, daughter of the 2nd Baron Crawshaw, in 1912, at St George's, Hanover Square, London. They had a son, Geoffrey, born in 1913, who came to Winchester as a War Exhibitioner in 1927.