Biography:
George Macpherson was born 7 March 1896, the son of George and Hilda Macpherson of Penn, near Wolverhampton.
He came to Winchester College from Lockers' Park in September 1909 and was in I House, Turner's. He played both cricket and soccer for his house, played in OTH XV in 1913 and 1914, and was On Dress for OTH VI in the same years. He was Senior Commoner Prefect from 1914 to 1915 and became Head of his House. He played for two years in the Soccer XI.
George left Winchester in the summer of 1915 and soon after obtained a commission in the East Kent Regiment and was transferred from there in April 1916 to the Machine Gun Corps, eventually joining the world's first tank unit.
He fell in action at Flers in the first ever tank attack. Macpherson's tank was in support of an attack on the German stronghold called The Quadrilateral, just east of Ginchy. None of the tank commanders had had an opportunity to reconnoitre the route and were dependent on special guides using shrouded lamps and luminous discs to lead them in the dark through a multitude of obstacles. Shortly after leaving Chimpanzee Valley, Macpherson's tank developed engine trouble which took half an hour to sort out, but a short distance further on it broke down again. Apart from one tank, which on its own was ineffectual, none of the tanks succeeded in getting through the German wire. By mid-morning a reserve tank had arrived and Macpherson decided to accompany it in his original tank, which he had just managed to get started again.
Basil Henriques in The Indiscretions of a Warden, published in 1937, and who was a good friend of Macpherson, recounts : 'Just as I was reporting to the Brigadier commanding the infantry, I met George, who had got his tank to go. He looked aghast at my blood-stained face [Henriques and his crew had been injured by slivers of steel dislodged by bulletstrikes on the exterior of their tank], and then with a smile got into his tank and went off to follow up the slowly advancing infantry. It was the last I saw of him. I have never heard how his tank fared. I only know he was a great hero off the field of battle, and I am sure he must have been one on it'.
Macpherson fell in action on 15 September 1916 and was taken to No 34 Casualty Clearing Station, at Grove Town Station near Albert, where he died later that afternoon. He lies in the cemetery there and is commemorated on a marble plaque in St Bartholomew's Church, Penn, Wolverhampton.
Macpherson was not the only Wykehamist to die that day on the Somme: ten others were killed or mortally wounded, including Captain Arthur Innes Adam (College 1907-1912, 1/1st Cambridgeshire Regiment); Lieutenant Raymond Asquith (College 1892-1897, 3rd Grenadier Guards), the son of the Prime Minister; Lieutenant-Colonel Eric William Benson MC (A 1901-1906, 9th KRRC); Major Charles Blair-Wilson (I 1908-1913, 42nd Canadian Infantry); Lieutenant Warine Frederick Martindale (B 1907-1912, 1st Scots Guards); Captain Desmond Clere Parsons (E 1903-1908, 2nd Irish Guards); Lance Corporal 73832 Henry Mark Ruddock (H 1908-1913, 28th Canadian Infantry); 2nd Lieutenant Evelyn Godfrey Worsley (A 1898-1903, 3rd Grenadier Guards); 2nd Lieutenant Geoffrey Wilfrid Penfold Wyatt (D 1909-1915, 1st East Kent Regiment); and Lieutenant Raymond Gilbert Hooker Yeatherd (F 1904-1908, 2nd Dragoon Guards) (see individual entries).
Winchester College’s archives contain a letter from Lieutenant Geoffrey Wyatt’s brother Oliver to their former housemaster, Horace Jackson, known as The Jacker. It is dated 14 November 1916, and mentions George Macpherson: 'Dear Mr Jackson, I think it was exceedingly kind of you to write to me to sympathize about Geoffrey. Of course it has made another great gap in the family, and it is very sad. But the Christian side makes so much of it seem wright [sic]. I don’t know if you realized that he and George Macpherson died on the same day in the same district. As you know, they were the greatest friends in the world, and it is very wonderful and beautiful that they should have died together. They met in France on the Sunday before for the first time for some months, and Geoffrey sat in his ‘tank’ and talked for a good deal of the afternoon. I am sure they would have liked to die together as they did'.