Captain Cuthbert Francis Balleine
Rifle Brigade
02/07/1915
1914-15 Star
Son of the Very Rev. G. O. Balleine, Dean of Jersey,
and Mrs. Balleine. Fellow and Sub-Rector of Exeter College,
Oxford.
Killed in action, aged 32 years
NEWS ITEM in Jersey Evening Post of Saturday 10
July 1915
Roll of Honour - Captain C F Balleine.
The death of Captain Balleine of 8th Battalion Rifle
Brigade, Fellow and Sub-Rector of Exeter College, Oxford
who was killed instantaneously by a shell on Friday
2 July in Flanders is another grievous loss to a College
that has recently lost some of the most distinguished
of its Fellows in the Dardanelles. Captain Cuthbert
Francis Balleine was born in 1883, the third son of
the Dean of Jersey and was educated at Victoria College.
He entered Exeter College in 1902 holding a King Charles
I Scholarship for Classics. He obtained a Second Class
in Honours Moderations in 1904 and a First in Literai
Humanoires in 1906. After taking the Degree he was awarded
a senior scholarship for travel and research and after
studying for some months in Gotha he went as assistant
to Dr Randall Maciver on an excavating expedition in
Upper Egypt in 1907. On his return he was elected to
a Tutorial Fellowship at Exeter College and served that
Society as Junior Bursar from 1911 to 1913 and as Sub-Rector
in 1913 and 1914. He was not only a man of high intellectual
powers but also of splendid physique, perfect nerve
and iron constitution. He was a prominent member of
the College Rugby XV and rowed twice in the College
Torpid and twice in the Eight and continued after his
Degree to devote much of his time and care to the coaching
of the College crew but even as an under graduate he
was still more interested in military training and served
as Sergeant and as Lieutenant in the old University
Volunteer Corps, when this was reorganised at the Officers
Training Corps he obtained a commission in it as Captain
in 1910. In the first weeks of the war he did valuable
work on the Oxford Committee for Awarding Commissions,
he then accompanied the newly appointed officers to
the Training Camp at Churn under the command of Colonel
Maclachan and former adjutant of the Oxford OTC. His
energy and skill induced the latter to obtain for him
a commission as Captain under him in the Rifle Brigade
in December 1914 and he went with his battalion to the
Front in April. Short as his war service was he had
time to win the golden opinion of officers and men,
he had every quality that would endear him both to the
younger and older members of his College. He was by
nature and temperament a born soldier and an admirable
leader of men. (This is an item reprinted from The Times
of Thursday)
