Commemorated: | |||
| 1. Memorial: | Currin Church Of Ireland Churchyard | South West Part | |
Awards & Titles: | |||
Early Life :
Lt Col Gerald Hugh Charles Madden, Irish Guards, was born on 26th July 1872.Family :
On 6th June 1901 he married Mabel Lucy (d. 15 May 1951), daughter of Sir George Macpherson Grant, 3rd Bart, of Ballindalloch. They had two sons and a daughter:Lt. Col. Brian John George Madden born Dec 1908, went to Wellington College, served with the Black Watch in World War Two and won a DSO in 1943;
Captain Dennis Gerald Madden born 24 Dec 1910, went to Wellington College married on 26 April 1941 Rosalind, daughter of Cmdr Arthur Henry de Kantzow, DSO, RN, and was killed in action on 30th April 1943;
Eva Mabel (born 1906, m. 9 July 1936 Major Claude Ronald Wombwell of Seaforth highlanders and had a son Gerald Arthur Wombwell, born Dec 1937.
Both boys were in the Murray at Wellington.
Service Life:
Campaigns:
- The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.
| Unit / Ship / Est.: 1/Irish Guards |
1st Battalion August 1914 : in Aldershot. Part of 4th (Guards) Brigade, 2nd Division. 20 August 1915 : transferred to 1st Guards Brigade, Guards Division |
| Action : France & Flanders |
France & Flanders covers all the dates and corresponding locations which are outside the official battle nomenclature dates on the Western Front. Therefore the actions in which these men died could be considered 'normal' trench duty - the daily attrition losses which were an everyday fact of duty on the Western Front.
In September 1914, following the retreat from Mons, Madden, a major at the time, was OC No. 4 Company, 1st Bn. Irish Guards, a role he held until the following summer.
July 1915 would see him recalled from duty to become Senior Major with the newly formed 2nd Bn. Irish Guards, due to embark for the battlefields on 17th August – by which time Madden had already returned to France where, on 16th August, he took command of his old battalion, 1st Bn. Irish Guards, being gazetted as a Temporary Lieutenant Colonel in early September.
Detail :
A month after taking command of the 1st Bttn Irish guards on 11th October, a few days after the official end to the Battle of Loos, a shell landed in the doorway of Madden’s headquarters dugout, seriously wounding the battalion’s Catholic Chaplain, Rev. Father John Gwynne, slightly wounding the Adjutant, Lord Desmond FitzGerald, and breaking both of Madden’s legs, and yet, as is the way of these things, leaving a number of others untouched.
Although moved to a safer dugout, it was impossible to evacuate the wounded men until after dark, and it took seven hours to clear the trenches, Madden being carried out on a sitting litter, and transport them to hospital in Béthune, where Gwynne died the next day to the dismay of the whole battalion.
Madden’s wounds too would in the end prove fatal, and he died in hospital in London on 12th November. He is buried in Currin Church of Ireland Churchyard, County Monaghan, in Ulster.
Masonic :
| Type | Lodge Name and No. | Province/District : |
|---|---|---|
| Mother : | Aldershot Army and Navy No. 1971 E.C. | Hampshire & IOW |
Initiated | Passed | Raised |
28th January 1897 | 22nd April 1897 | 24th August 1897 |
He was a former member of Aldershot Army & Navy Lodge having joined in 1897 and resigned in 1907.
Source :
The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:
- The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
- The (UK) National Archives
- Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
- ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry
Additional Source:
- Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
- Researcher : Bruce Littley