Lieutenant William Edward Graham NIVEN (1896)

1/1st Battalion, Berkshire Yeomanry
Born 24 June 1877 in Kensington, London
Killed in action 21 August 1915, aged 38
Buried at Green Hill Cemetery, Gallipoli, Turkey.

William Niven was the son of William Niven and Helen, née Boustead. In 1899 he married Henrietta Julia Degacher. The actor David Niven was their younger son, one of four children.

He was educated at Wellington College, and came up to Merton in 1896.

Having been commissioned in the Berkshire Yeomanry in 1911, he was mobilized on the outbreak of war, and served at Gallipoli.

He was killed in action at the Battle of Scimitar Hill, inland from Suvla Bay, in Gallipoli, on 21 August 1917. His unit were attacking across the Salt Lake and were an easy target for the Turkish artillery. One Turkish officer later called it "a target such as an artilleryman thought impossible outside the world of dreams". The Yeomanry lost 1,200 men in the three kilometre advance. Lieutenant Niven had actually reached the Turkish trenches in the dark, when he was shot in the head. It was not until 17 months later that the family received official confirmation of his death.