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06/2014 - News release
Middlesex's sacrifice remembered during centenary of start of First World War
11 November 2014
Families of Middlesex Regiment veterans gathered this weekend to pay their respects to those who died serving their county and country, at a special ceremony in the former Middlesex Guildhall, home of the UK Supreme Court since 2009.
This is the fifth year that the Court has hosted a Remembrance Service for the Regiment on the day before Remembrance Sunday. This years' service had added poignancy, marking one hundred years since the start of the First World War - a conflict during which 12,694 men died during active service from the county of Middlesex alone.
Around 70 people - mainly former service personnel and their families - gathered to lay wreaths and observe a two minutes' silence. The event is organised annually in conjunction with the Middlesex Regiment Association, chaired by Colonel Rex Cain OBE DL.
The service was also attended by Brigadier Douglas Chalmers DSO OBE, who laid a wreath on behalf of the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment. The PWRR is the infantry regiment established in 1992 by the amalgamation of the Middlesex Regiment and three others, and was originally known as the Queen's Regiment.
The service took place around a bronze statue modelled on a former Middlesex soldier, Robert Ryder VC. Ryder was an employee of Middlesex County Council before serving in the 12th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment during the First World War. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his gallantry in the attack on Thiepval in September 1916, during the Battle of the Somme. Ryder survived the war and died aged 83 years in 1978, and is buried in Harefield, Middlesex.
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