Dare Hamilton Field

Posted on November 11, 2018 by Ant Stewart

31^st August 1891 – 22^nd April 1915. Royal Garrison Artillery (2^nd London Brigade)

Dare Hamilton Field was former Manchester FC player, born in 1891 in Westminster, and a Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery. He was killed on the 22^nd April 1915 at Kitchener Wood, near Ypres. Field was born in London, and went to Wellington School. During peacetime he worked as an assistant works manager for the British Aluminium Company in Milton, Stoke-on-Trent. He was also a fine cricketer – an all-rounder – who played at minor county level.

An account of his death, provided in Menin Gate North: In Memory and In Mourning by Paul Chapman, is as follows.

“On the 22^nd April 1915 the 2^nd London Battery, a heavy battery of Territorial artillery armed with four 7-inch guns which had been placed in action at Kitchener Wood behind the French position, was overrun, but the gunners remained with their guns until the German infantry were close upon them, when they rendered the breech-blocks useless so that the guns could not be fired, and withdrew. Both young officers present, Lieuts. Sandeman and Hamilton Field, died beside their guns, according to the tradition of their regiment.”

Field is commemorated at Ypres Menin Gate Memorial, West Flanders. Panel 9.

SOURCES
Buckinghamshire Remembers
Paul Chapman – Menin Gate North: In Memory and in Mourning
Andrew Renshaw, ed. – Wisden on the Great War: The Lives of Cricket’s Fallen 1914-1918