[2] He was thirty one years old, and a captain in the 57th Field Company, Corps of Royal Engineers, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC.

On 23 August 1914 at Jemappes, Mons, Belgium, a company of the Royal Scots Fusiliers were holding a barricade at the north end of a bridge over the Mons-Condé canal.

Eventually he gave up the attempt and in swinging himself back under the girder of the bridge he lost his grip and owing to exhaustion fell into the canal, and was pulled out by a Sergeant Smith.

An officer of the Scots Greys wrote in a letter later "We got across the river the day before yesterday a bit before our time and we had to go back over a pontoon bridge considerably quicker than was pleasant, under a very heavy fire too.

At the end of the bridge was an Engineer officer repairing bits blown off and putting down straw as cool as a cucumber – the finest thing I ever saw.