Captain Francis Hardinge Follett BOOTH (1908)

6th (Reserve) Battalion, attached to 2nd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment
Born 9 January 1889 in Teddington, Middlesex
Missing, believed killed in action 25 September 1917, aged 28
Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium. Also commemorated in St Peter’s Church, Old Woking, Surrey, and on Woodham War Memorial, Woking.

Francis Booth was the son of Francis Henry Arthur Booth and Florence Eliza, née Giffard, of Hoe Place, Old Woking, Surrey. His father was a successful stockbroker on the London Stock Exchange, and the family lived before the war in Hoe Place, Old Woking, a 17th-century house now occupied by Hoe Bridge School. Francis was one of 11 children – six boys and five girls; his younger brother, Major Laurence Elliot Booth MC and Bar, was also killed in the Great War.

He was educated at Shrewsbury, and matriculated at Merton in 1908, taking his BA in 1914. He then travelled to Canada to study at St Chad’s Theological College, Regina, Saskatchewan.

He enlisted in King Edward’s Horse in August 1914, receiving his commission in the Worcestershires in November, and served in France and Belgium. Seriously wounded in December 1915, he rejoined his regiment after nine months.

He was posted as missing, believed killed in action near Gheluvelt, on 25 September 1917, whilst leading his company forward during the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge.