CAPTAIN BASIL STAINFORTH MANN, 2/6TH WEST RIDING REGIMENT.


CAPTAIN BASIL STAINFORTH MANN, 2/6TH WEST RIDING REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 27th NOVEMBER 1917, AGED 21


Basil was born in the village of Weeton between Otley and Harrogate in 1896 the eldest of four children and only son of William Hutchinson Mann and his wife Alice. His father was an engineer who along with his two brothers owned and ran Mann and Charlesworth & Co who manufactured steam traction engines at their large premises on Pepper Road in the Hunslet area of Leeds.



Basil began is education at Leeds Grammar School but when the family moved to Ilkley in 1909, to live at 2 Fernbank, 10 Crossbeck Road, he was sent as a boarder to Oakham School in Rutland. He finished school in 1913 and was employed in the woollen trade locally and seems to have spent much of his time on the continent.


At the outbreak of war in 1914 Basil enlisted as a private in the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps. This was a unit which existed to train men with no previous military experience who sought a commission in the army. In March 1915 he was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1/6th Battalion of the West Riding Regiment who were based in Skipton, although, the battalion itself was already fighting in France. It was on Christmas Eve of that year that Basil would eventually join the battalion who were stationed in the Ypres sector of the Western Front.


Basil does not seem to have stayed with the battalion for long as by the spring of 1916 he no longer appears on the battalion roll. However, in May 1917 it is known that he was posted to a sister battalion, 2/6th West Riding Regiment in the Somme area.


Promoted to captain, Basil was still with the 2/6th when it was involved in the fighting during the Cambrai Offensive. On 27th November the battalion attacked towards Bourlon Wood which they succeeded in capturing, although, with heavy casualties including Basil who was killed. In a letter to his grieving parents his commanding officer said of him " We had no officer so devoted to his company or so keen in his duty, as you son and his loss is a great blow to us all. I think the death of your son stirred his men, for they advanced rapidly in the face machine gun fire and captured their objective without any officer to lead them. That fact alone proves the value of the work done by your son whilst training his men. November 27th was a sad but honourable day for the battalion.


Sadly, Captain Basil Stainforth Mann has no known grave and is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial to the Missing and is remembered with pride at St Margaret’s Church on Queens Road  and on the war memorial on The Grove.

Photograph courtesy Liz Ford, Basil Stainforth Mann’s great neice




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