Lieutenant D’Arcy John Joseph HARTLEY (1910)

7th (Princess Royal’s) Dragoon Guards, attached to The Machine Gun Corps
Born 1 July 1890 in Whitchurch, Shropshire
Killed in action 14 July 1916, aged 26
Commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France; and on the Billesdon war memorial, Leicestershire.

D’Arcy Hartley was the second son of John D’Arcy Hartley and Isabel, née Manley, of Billesdon Coplow, Leicestershire.

He was educated at Stonyhurst College, and at Eton College before matriculating at Merton in 1910. Whilst at Oxford he represented Oxford against Cambridge in the long jump at Queen’s Club in 1911 and 1912—winning the event in the former year with a jump of 21 feet 5 inches—as well as competing against teams from Yale and Harvard.

He joined up in September 1914, was made a Lieutenant on 24 December 1914, and served in France.

He was killed in action at the battle of Bazentin Ridge, during the first phase of the Battle of the Somme, on 14 July 1916.