Memorial to Captain (Temporary Major) Walter Greville Bagot-Chester, MC, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles. He was the son of the Reverend Algernon Stewart McKenzie Bagot-Chester, Rector of Elford, and Emily Mary Dillman Bagot Chester (nee Pyne), later of "Elford House," Ferring, Worthing, Sussex. Gentleman Cadet at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Commissioned into the Indian Army (unattached list) as a 2nd Lieutenant on 9 Sep 1908. Promoted to Captain on 1 Sep 1915 and to Temporary Major on 27 Mar 1918. He was serving with the 2nd Battalion when it was sent to France a few months after the declaration of war in 1914 with the 20th (Garhwal) Brigade, arriving in Marseilles on 12-14 Oct 1914. The Battalion fought at La Bassée (12 Oct 1914), in the defence of Festubert (Nov 1914) and Givenchy (Dec 1914), at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle (10–13 Mar 1915), in the battles of Festubert and Aubers and in Sep 1915 took part in the Battle of Loos (25 Sep to 8 Oct 1915). Captain Bagot-Chester was mentioned in despatches on 23 July 1915 and was severely wounded at Loos. His right shoulder was shattered and he sustained six other injuries. After being hit he and a wounded Gurkha had to lie for over 12 hours in a shell hole under heavy fire and pouring rain, until they could eventually creep back to British lines. He spent the next year recovering from his wounds, but he left Southampton for Egypt in Oct 1916 to rejoin his battalion who had been helping to defend the Suez Canal against Ottoman forces. He was appointed Adjutant in Dec 1916 and in Jan 1917 was transferred from the 2/3rd to the 3/3rd Gurkha Rifles, which was then being formed as a new battalion. This unit joined 233rd Brigade, and in June 1917 took over a section of the defences near Rafa in Palestine before joining the advance on Gaza in late October. On 31 Oct 1917 he and 197 men from the 3rd Battalion were ordered to raid Outpost Hill, part of a chain of redoubts and fortifications. The successful raid is described at https://ww1.nam.ac.uk/stories/captain-walter-bagot-chester/. This was a lead into the 3rd Battle of Gaza in Nov 1917 and he was awarded the Military Cross [London Gazette : 18 Jul 1918] "For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He led a successful raid on the enemy's lines. He showed the greatest coolness and courage under heavy machine-gun fire, reached all his objectives, and carried out a skilful withdrawal when the operation was completed.' On 27 Mar 1918 he was wounded by shellfire at Hill 1263 near Mughair Ahmed while supervising the consolidation of a recently gained position. He died the following morning and was later buried at Ramleh War Cemetery, Ramla, Central District, Israel.
Actual burial here
He is also commemorated on a 3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles (2nd and 3rd Battalions' officers) WW1 brass memorial plaque in The Gurkha Museum, Peninsular Barracks, Romsey Road, Winchester, Hampshire (see: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/92943) and on the Elford Parish Memorial (as Greville Chester) in St Peter's Church, Church Road, Elford, Staffordshire, England (see: https://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk/memorial/144743/).