Captain Christopher Mellor Ridley
10TH ESSEX REGIMENT
FOR EVERY OBJECTIVE THAT WAS seized on the Somme, no matter how fierce the struggle, how much it bled the manpower of the British Army, there was always another in front of it waiting to do the same. In front of part of Regina Trench, the next target was another named Desire. The 10th Essex had already seen enough of the sector, but it now rotated in and out of Regina with its eye on this prize. Among the officers of the battalion was a 25 year old from Chelmsford in Essex named Christopher Ridley. His housemaster at Rugby had been Rupert Brooke’s father, and when he left school in 1908, after a period of special training he entered the family business: T.D. Ridley and Sons, Steam Mills. In his spare time, Christopher was active in the fledgling Boy Scout movement, running the 3rd Chelmsford Troop. Prior to the war, Christopher had also served in a territorial battalion of his regiment for nearly five years. In November 1914 he volunteered and was granted a commission a few weeks later. By June 1915 he had been promoted to captain and arrived in France the following month.
Captain Christopher Ridley. (Authors’ collection)
Christopher had been wounded at Mametz on 1st July when a bullet entered just under his left shoulder blade and stuck there, but he was comparatively lucky. It was a clean wound and it healed quickly. He had returned to his battalion in September in time to play a part in the capture of Regina Trench on the left of the Canadian contingent. On the front of the 10th Essex Regiment, at least 250 Germans were killed and 315 were taken prisoner along with five machine guns. The entire brigade suffered less than 300 casualties.
The Essex men had become closely acquainted with their sector beforehand and seized their objectives comfortably:
In twenty minutes they had possessed themselves of Regina Trench, supported by the excellent barrage … When the attack was launched the enemy shelled the assembly trenches and did not pay attention to Regina Trench until an hour later, which gave the battalions an excellent chance to dig in.
The conditions in Regina Trench had since grown distinctly unpleasant. ‘The tracks up had not yet been properly organised and laid. More often than not, therefore, we arrived already wet, after several miles march, to hold a very wet and muddy trench … for the most part, if you had tried to lie down, you would have drowned.’ The mud all the way back at Albert itself was up to 9in deep. In the trenches it was worse, as Christopher Ridley and his battalion well knew. ‘On one occasion two men of the battalion sank up to their shoulders and were found by a passing lieutenant colonel.
In spite of all of this, preparations were being made to take Desire Trench, although the 10th Essex would not have to make the attack this time. Its part would be to man the lines sufficiently beforehand to ensure that those troops were as fresh as possible when they went into action. Christopher and his battalion took over a support line from the East Surreys on 29th October in yet more pouring rain and found their spot ‘very sticky’. They worked through the clinging mud all morning, only to see their efforts fall apart when the rain began again, causing the walls of the trench to begin falling in.
On the 31st, Christopher and his men moved up to the front line to relieve a battalion of Berkshire men in Regina Trench. It was a fine morning, for once, but the trenches were practically impassable with mud and water. As the battalion was moving up, the Germans had spied the activity and began shelling Regina. Christopher had retreated into a dugout to sit down when an enemy field gun scored a direct hit on the flimsy structure. The 25 year old was killed instantly. The month of October had cost the 10th Essex 200 casualties in all, a percentage of which were men who simply could not stand to go on in the misery of the front lines and broke down.
Christopher’s fellow officers were wounded deeply by his death. ’He was a splendid fellow,’ wrote one. ‘I myself, feel his loss very much, as we both served in the same company for so long, and I shall miss him greatly.’ But Christopher himself might have been more touched by the sentiment of his men. ‘He was my company commander, and he was one of the best officers we have had,’ wrote one. ‘He was a friend, as well as an officer to the boys and they would follow him anywhere.’ It was a fitting epitaph to a young man, who always thought of them before himself and who once said, ‘I had rather be spoken well of by the men than by the officers.’ Christopher’s younger brother, Herbert, was killed less than a year later near Ypres with a battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Christopher was buried near his battalion’s headquarters just west of Courcelette. His grave was subsequently lost and his body, if recovered, was never identified. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier & Face 10d.