"Ian Calcutt Findlay, came up to Cambridge from the Imperial Service College at Windsor in October 1914, aged 17. He had also entered at the Inner Temple. Unable to serve until his 18th birthday in December, he was one of a very small group of undergraduates left in College during Michaelmas Term 1914.
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, Regius Professor of English Literature, described that first term after the war had started: “We came up in October to find the streets desolate indeed.” Troops that had been there had departed for France and few undergraduates had come up. He goes on to describe the scene in College “one seldom met, never heard, an undergraduate. A few would gather in Hall, the most of them in their OTC uniforms after a strenuous afternoon out at Madingley.”
He continues “As I looked down the hall, this one undergraduates’ table reminded me of a road in the West Country I had followed a few days before, with the telegraph running beside it and on the wires the swallows gathering, discussing flight”. (Arthur Quiller-Couch A biographical study of Q, by F Brittain. Page 80)
Findlay’s obituary in the Jesus College Society Annual Report obtained his commission as 2nd Lieutenant at the end of term, presumably on his 18th birthday. He died of wounds in Flanders on 10th August 1915. (http://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/about-jesus-college/history/first-world-war/t...)
“LIEUTENANT lAN FINDLAY. A cable message has been received in in Wellington stating that Ian, the youngest son of Sir John Findlay, died of wounds received in action in France on the 10th inst. The deceased was eighteen years of age and was a second lieutenant. He was born in Wellington, and left New Zealand over three years ago to complete his school life at the Imperial Service College in England where he had a very distinguished career. He had entered at the Middle Temple and [was] at Jesus College, Cambridge before the war broke out and had already proved himself to be a gifted writer. He volunteered before his eighteenth birthday, and received his commission as second lieutenant in January last. Sir John Findlay’s two remaining sons are both at the front in France.” [Press, Volume LI, Issue 15358, 16 August 1915, Page 5]
His 2 brothers also served. James in the East Surrey Regiment and the Royal Flying Corps. and Major John Findlay, in the Machine Gun Corps of the Kings Rifles.
James went on to have a distinguished career in the RNZAF, rising to the rank of Air Commodore. His son, Ian Thomas Findlay, was killed serving with the RAF in WW2, and is buried in Belgrade War Cemetery.
His father was Sir John Findlay KCMG KC (1862-1929), a lawyer and Liberal party politician. A cabinet minister from 1906- 1911.
Ian was educated at Wellington College, NZ. and appears on their Roll of Honour with 222 others from that school.
