Sir Alfred Rawlinson, 3rd Baronet

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Sir Alfred Rawlinson, Bt
Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire,
Distinguished Service Order
Medal record
Men's polo
Representing a  Mixed team
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 1900 Paris Team competition

CBE DSO (17 January 1867 – 1 June 1934) was an English soldier and intelligence officer, sportsman, pioneer motorist and aviator.[1][2][3]

Early life

Rawlinson was the second son of

General Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baron Rawlinson, who masterminded the Battle of Amiens and the Hundred Days Offensive that brought the fighting of the First World War
to a close.

Rawlinson, known to family and friends as "Toby",

2nd lieutenant into the 17th Lancers.[6]

Sportsman

Rawlinson was a top-level

Olympic gold medal. He retired from the sport in 1911.[7] Rawlinson was also a keen motor racing driver, resigning from the army to concentrate on the sport. He took part in the 1908 Isle of Man RAC Tourist Trophy ("TT") race, driving his Darracq into 7th place.[nb 1][8]

Rawlinson learned to fly in France in a Farman aircraft, essentially teaching himself after he was unable to enrol for formal lessons. He surprised everyone by getting into the air at his first attempt and was considered a natural if reckless aviator.[9] In 1909 he acquired the rights for constructing Farman aircraft in the UK and subsequently resigned as managing director of the Darracq Motor Company to concentrate on this new passion.[10] On 5 April 1910 Rawlinson became only the third person in the United Kingdom to hold a Royal Aero Club aviator's certificate.[11]

France, 1914–15

At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Rawlinson was 47 and too old to be called up as a reservist. He therefore offered himself and his

colonel by Sir John French, despite having left the cavalry as a subaltern.[13]
His driving exploits were described in his Adventures on the Western Front, August, 1914 – June, 1915 (1925).

In the

Admiralty and volunteered his services.[16]

Air defence of London, 1915–17

Rawlinson (extreme left) with one of the anti-aircraft guns of the Royal Naval Anti-Aircraft Mobile Brigade, a towed QF 3-inch 20 cwt.

On 20 June 1915, Rawlinson was appointed a

lieutenant-colonel
. His new command consisted of 19 gun and 36 searchlight positions. He commanded these assets during the heavy air raids of late 1917.

Intelligence Corps

In January 1918, Rawlinson tendered his resignation and sought a post in pursuance of "an ardent desire to once more get a little closer to the enemy". In February, he obtained a transfer to the

Tiflis-Baku railway, and to oversee the demobilizing of Turkish forces.[25] Under Lionel Dunsterville, he was sent on a mission to the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus.[26]

On his last assignment, to establish whether Turkey was obeying the armistice conditions, Rawlinson and his party were held prisoner in Erzurum by the Turkish authorities, placing the British Government in an awkward position, because his elder brother was a high-ranking military officer.[27] He was eventually released in a prisoner exchange which included the so-called Malta Exiles, who were prosecuted for war crimes during World War I.[28]

His book Adventures in the Near East (1923), chronicles the state of affairs during the armistice days at the end of World War I. In particular, he gives accounts of the landscape after the Russian withdrawal and the beginnings of the Turkish nationalist movement.[29]

Private life

On 25 June 1890, Alfred Rawlinson married Margarette Kennard, the 6th daughter of William Bunce Greenfield

DL
. They had four children; twins Alfred Frederick and Honour Louisa were born on 23 August 1900. Honour died aged 12. They had a second daughter, Irene Margarette (died 1974) and a third, Mary, who also died in infancy. Margarette Rawlinson died on 18 September 1907 aged about 49.

On 13 December 1913, Rawlinson married his second wife Jean Isabella Griffin Aitkin, an actress also known by her stage name of Jean Aylwin. They were divorced in 1924; the composer Hubert Bath was named as co-respondent in the case. The court heard that while she had been appearing in Polly, she had asked her husband to rent a flat for her opposite the theatre. When he went to visit her there, he encountered Mr Bath. On learning that his wife was too ill to come out, Rawlinson invited Bath out to lunch, who declined, claiming a prior engagement. Rawlinson returned to the flat later, where he again met Bath. When Bath went to ask Aylwin if she was well enough to receive her husband, Rawlinson heard her ask "Has he gone?" which aroused his suspicions about Bath's presence. Aylwin wrote to her husband afterwards, saying he was "quite wrong", and that Bath had been "a good friend". However, the housekeeper testified that Aylwin and Bath had often been alone together at the flat. The court found for Colonel Rawlinson and granted the divorce.[30][31]

When Rawlinson's older brother died on 28 March 1925, he became the 3rd baronet, but did not inherit the peerage created for his brother, which became extinct.

Alfred Rawlinson died suddenly of natural causes at his flat in Clapham on 1 June 1934.[32]

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ Two other pioneer aviators, John Moore-Brabazon (Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate No. 1) and Arthur Edward George (Aviator's Certificate No. 19), took part in the 1908 I.O.M. TT, the former, driving a Métallurgique, having to retire after 6 laps due to a problem with an exhaust valve, the latter, driving a Darracq, taking third place and also recording the fastest lap time.[8]

Citations

  1. ^ Charles Cyril Turner, The Old Flying Days, p. 245.
  2. ^ Sir Alfred Rawlinson
  3. ^ "Sir Alfred Rawlinson". Olympedia. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
  4. ^ George Rawlinson, A Memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, p. 243.
  5. ^ Rawlinson, George, A memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1898, p. 291, Two sons were the fruit of the union – Henry Seymour, commonly known as ' Harry,' or Sennacherib, born in 1864, and Alfred, born in 1867, called in his family and by his intimates ' Toby.'
  6. ISBN 0-9711966-2-1
    , p. 3292
  7. ISBN 978-0786495771
    .
  8. ^ a b Results of the Isle of Man 1908 TT race
  9. ^ "Rawlinson is the Man Who Surprised Everyone by Flying at First Attempt". Dundee Evening Telegraph. 15 July 1910. p. 1.
  10. ^ "Cycle and Motor News". Coventry Herald. 15 October 1909. p. 10.
  11. ^ Flight 9 April 1910
  12. ISBN 978-1-7802-2759-7
    .
  13. ISBN 978-0313324734
    .
  14. ISBN 978-0750956147
    .
  15. ^ Rawlinson, Alfred, Sir, The Defence of London, 1915–1918, 1923 (p.3)
  16. ^ Rawlinson 1925, pp. 314-315
  17. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, pp.6–8)
  18. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, pp.9–19
  19. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, pp.30–31
  20. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, pp.44–4
  21. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, p.57
  22. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, pp.88–89
  23. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, Rawlinson, pp. 110–114
  24. ^ Rawlinson, The Defence of London, pp.238–242
  25. ^ Merrill D. Peterson, "Starving Armenians": America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1930 and After, p. 75.
  26. ^ Moshe Gammer, The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule, p. 127.
  27. ^ Gary Jonathan Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals, p. 139.
  28. ISBN 978-1-78673-183-8
    .
  29. ^ Rawlinson, Adventures in the Near East (London: Andrew Melrose, 1923)
  30. ^ Burke's Peerage 2003
  31. ^ "Actress's Flat in Chelsea – Composer Friend Cited as Co-Respondent". North Devon Journal. Barnstaple. 15 May 1924. p. 3. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
  32. ^ Alfred Rawlinson Obituary from The Times, 4 June 1934

Bibliography

External links
Baronetage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Baronet

(of North Walsham, Norfolk)
1925–1934 		Succeeded by
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