S is for St Eloi

Milo Massey Cudmore  (1888 - 1916) was the cousin of my great grandfather Arthur Murray Cudmore.  Milo was the son of Daniel Henry Cashel Cudmore (1844 - 1913) and Martha Earle Cudmore née McCracken (1855 - 1938). He was the second youngest of nine children.

On 27 March 1916 Milo Massey Cudmore was killed in action at St Eloi near Ypres. He was a Lieutenant with the Royal Field Artillery assigned to 31 TM Bty (trench mortar battery).

In 1913 Milo was a station hand on Elderslie Station,  near Winton, Queensland. He sailed to England on the P & O ship Orsova arriving 2 January 1915.

On 12 January 1915 Milo Massey Cudmore then a cadet with the Officers Training Corps was appointed 2nd Lieutenant with the Royal Field Artillery. ( The London Gazette Publication date: 12 January 1915 Supplement: 29039 Page: 464 ) He was promoted from temporary 2nd Lieutenant to temporary Lieutenant on 1 January 1916. ( The London Gazette Publication date: 21 January 1916 Issue: 29445 Page: 849)

News has been received in Adelaide from Lieutenant Collier R. Cudmore, of the Royal Field Artillery, that his brother, Lieutenant Milo Massey Cudmore, also of the Royal Field Artillery, was killed in action in France on March 27. He was a son of the late Mr. Daniel H. Cudmore, of Avoca Station, New South Wales, and Mrs. Cudmore, of Adare, Victor Harbor. He was also a grandson of the late Mr. Peter McCracken, of Melbourne. The late Lieutenant Cudmore, who was 27 years of age, was educated at St. Peter's College and at Magdalene College, Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree. When war broke out he left a North Queensland station for England, where he obtained a commission in the Royal Field Artillery. He had been in the trenches since February 15, 1915, first with a field battery and latterly in command of a battery of trench mortars. In August last he was wounded in the left arm during the attack on Loos. For his conduct on this occasion he was mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Military Cross. (PERSONAL. (1916, April 6). The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8709251)

One of the large craters on the St Eloi battlefield probably taken some time after the battle. The scale of the crater can be seen by the wagon and person on the far side of the crater. Image from http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/battles-and-fighting/land-battles/st-eloi/

The battle of St Eloi began with the detonation of six mines beneath German lines on 27 March 1916, huge explosions meant to destroy the sector’s German defences. The explosions left massive craters which can still be seen today. (http://www.firstworldwar.com/today/steloicraters.htm; http://www.toerismeieper.be/en/page/334-349-364/minecrater-saint-eloi.html)

St Eloi, now known as Sint-Elooi, is a small village, about 5 kilometers south of Ypres. There is no grave for Milo Massey Cudmore. He is listed on the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres, one of 54,000 names on that memorial.
 
Although Milo Massey Cudmore did not serve with the Australian armed forces he is remembered at the Australian War Memorial on the Commemorative Roll. Milo Massey Cudmore is also remembered on the Magdelen College roll of Oxford University. He had graduated in 1908.

In 1939 his brother Paul (1883 - 1969) presented the Lamp of Maintenance to the Victor Harbor branch of Toc H. (IN and OUT of the CITY. (1939, April 15). The Mail (Adelaide, SA : 1912 - 1954), p. 15. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55750141) Toc H (Talbot House), now an international Christian movement, was founded by an army chaplain as a club for soldiers at Poperinge twelve kilometers west of Ypres, Belgium in 1915. There is still a Toc H campsite at Victor Harbor.  The Cudmore family were based at Adare House in Victor Harbor, South Australia.

Members of the Cudmore family who owned "Adare" at Victor Harbor about 1900. Back Row, l-r: Roland, Henry, Mary (Minnie), Paul. Front Row, l-r: Collier, Martha, Daniel H;, Danny (on footstool), Mil. Image from the State Library of South Australia id B 48077

Additional sources

• Cook, Tim (1996) "The Blind Leading the Blind: The Battle of the St. Eloi Craters," Canadian Military History: Vol. 5: Iss. 2, Article 4. Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol5/iss2/4

A pirate in the family tree

Sir Henry Mainwaring (1587-1653) was an English seaman who spent some of his career as a pirate on the Barbary coast. He was afterwards pardoned and knighted by King James.

My son, who is studying history, came across the pirate Henry Mainwaring and asked if we were related to him.  I replied that I did not think so, but I decided to check for a relationship.  Henry Mainwaring, I discovered, is my third cousin eleven times removed, a relative indeed, though not a close one.

The common ancestor of me and the pirate is Sir John Mainwaring (1470-1515) my 13 times great grandfather.  Sir John had gone to the French wars in the train of the Earl of Shrewsbury. He was knighted at Tournai in 1513. ( Metcalfe, Walter Charles, ed., Book of Knights Banneret, Knights of the Bath et., IV Henry VI to 1660, London (1885) page 50 ) Sir John Mainwaring was Henry Mainwaring's great great grandfather.

Henry Mainwaring was the second son of Sir George Mainwaring and Ann More.  Henry studied at Oxford University. In 1604, about seventeen years old, he was admitted to the Inner Temple as a lawyer.

It is not clear how Henry became a seaman, but in 1610, at the age of about twenty-three, he was commissioned by the Lord High Admiral, Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, to capture the pirate Peter Easton, who had been raiding Newfoundland.  Mainwaring was unsuccessful.  He was then given a letter of marque, becoming a privateer against Spanish shipping in the West Indies.  En route there he decided instead to attack Spanish shipping from the coast of Morocco.


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Mainwaring was based at La Marmora, present day Mehdya, on the Morocco coast near Rabat, for four years from 1612. He had a fleet of thirty captured Spanish ships.  He claimed that he never attacked English ships.  The French and Spanish governments complained about Mainwaring to the English government and King James I sent an envoy with an offer of a free pardon if he promised to give up piracy. He was pardoned in 1616 and all those who served under him were granted an amnesty.

Later, Mainwaring became a hunter of pirates. He wrote a book on piracy, Discourse of Pirates, which he dedicated to the King.  He was knighted on 20 March 1618 and became one of King James's courtiers and a friend of the King.

In 1620 he was appointed Lieutenant of Dover Castle and Deputy Warden of the Cinque Ports. In 1621 he was elected Member of Parliament for Dover. Around this time Mainwaring wrote the Seaman’s Dictionary. It was not published until 1644 but manuscript copies were distributed before then. It is considered the first authoritative treatise in seamanship.

Mainwaring offended Lord Zouche, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and was dismissed from his post at Dover Castle. Mainwaring sought the patronage of the Duke of Buckingham. At that time Buckingham was Lord High Admiral and it has been asserted that Buckingham and his masters made a serious attempt to reform the naval administration, and that in this Mainwaring played a considerable part. However Buckingham was assassinated in 1628 and Mainwaring lost his patron.

Mainwaring was not wealthy, and after Buckingham's death, he attempted to improve his fortunes by marrying a rich widow.  She rejected him and in 1630 he eloped with a twenty-three year old heiress.  His father-in-law refused to provide a dowry until Mainwaring had made a settlement. Mainwaring's wife died in 1633 and their only daughter died about 1640. Mainwaring was outlawed for debt in 1641. In 1651 an assessment of his worth in considering his debt stated that his entire property consisted of ‘a horse and wearing apparel to the value of £8’.

Mainwaring had joined the navy as a captain in 1636.  He was a Vice-Admiral by 1639.


During the English Civil War (1642-1651), Mainwaring joined the King at Oxford. Later he served with Royalist fleet.  He was with the sixteen-year-old Prince Charles, later King Charles II, at Jersey in 1646.


Mainwaring died in 1653, leaving no will.  He was buried at St Giles, Camberwell.  No gravestone, if there was one, has survived.


References and further reading

E. Hunt, “MAINWARING, SIR HENRY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 20, 2014, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mainwaring_henry_1E.html.

Mainwaring, G. E. (ed.). 1920. The Life and Works of Sir Henry Mainwaring. London: The Council of the Navy Records Society. https://archive.org/details/henrymainwaring02manwuoft

Pringle, Patrick Jolly Roger : the story of the great age of piracy. Dover Publications, 2012. pages 43-45 retrieved from Google Books http://books.google.com.au/books?id=WqXDAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT43

Thrush Andrew "MAINWARING, Sir Henry (1586/7-1653), of Dover Castle, Kent; later of Camberwell, Surr." The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790, 1964. Member Biographies from The History of Parliament Online. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. <http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1604-1629/member/mainwaring-sir-henry-15867-1653>

"SIR HENRY MAINWARING.*." The Spectator Archive. The Spectator, 19 Feb. 1921. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. <http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/19th-february-1921/19/sir-henry-mainwaring>.

(Library Assistant), Nabila. "The Seaman's Dictionary: 'This Book Shall Make a Man Understand'" Royal Museums Greenwich. National Maritime Museum, 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. <http://www.rmg.co.uk/researchers/collections/by-type/archive-and-library/item-of-the-month/previous/the-seaman%27s-dictionary>

PEN PICTURES OF THE PAST. IN PIRATE DAYS. (1914, July 9). Cobram Courier (Vic. : 1914 - 1918), p. 6. Retrieved March 21, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article129536151