How did a soldier who died in action in France in 1914 come to be buried in his home county? Historian Stephen Nunn investigates

TO say Sir Claude de Crespigny was a determined man would be something of an understatement.

Not for nothing was he described as “one of the hardest and pluckiest men in England”.

Adventurer, sportsman, early balloonist, pugilist, magistrate, amateur hangman (volunteer executioner), he was undoubtedly “a strong man with set views”.

Born in 1847, Sir Claude ‘Champion’ de Crespigny JP was the 4th Baronet of that ilk. He joined the Navy at 15, was then commissioned into the Army with the 60th Rifles and eventually transferred to the Hussars.

He later held a militia command and was CO of the Maldon and Dengie Companies of the National Reserve during the Great War.

From 1881, Sir Claude’s country seat was Champion (now Totham) Lodge, off Broad Street Green.

He lived there with his wife, Lady Georgina Louisa Margaret Champion de Crespigny (née McKerrall), and they had nine children – five boys (all with the first name Claude) and four girls.

Their fifth and youngest son, Claude Norman, was born in 1888 and appears to have inherited some of his father’s undoubted “pluck”.

In 1907, he became a Second-Lieutenant with the 1st (The King’s) Dragoon Guards.

Promoted to Lieutenant in January 1908, in November of the same year he transferred to the 2nd Dragoon Guards – the Queen’s Bays.

On September 7, 1913, he married Olive Rose Champion de Crespigny (née Gordon) – a relation of famous General Gordon of Khartoum.

With the outbreak of the Great War, Claude Norman joined his regiment in France and was in the thick of the fighting.

Accounts indicate that, on September 1, 1914, horses were picketed down and the Guards were holding an important tactical point at Compiégne in an encounter later described as “the second Balaclava”.

At about 5.30am, Claude Norman and a few of his men stood their ground as the Germans opened fire on them with 12 field guns and several Maxims.

Despite a determined defence, all of the Guards involved that fateful morning were either killed or seriously wounded.

Claude Norman was last seen alive advancing towards the jaws of the enemy with his revolver drawn.

It was a sad, but all too common, outcome for a young (26-year-old) officer, keen to do his bit for king and country and making the ultimate sacrifice in the process.

But there is something a bit different about Claude Norman’s subsequent story.

The official records confirm that he was indeed “killed in action in France”, but he was then somehow buried here in England.

How can that be?

Possible mistakes aside, the answer is confirmed in the latest book by Great War historian Richard Van Emden – Missing (Pen & Sword 2019).

Richard says that in the early stages of the war “around forty sets of remains had been privately removed from the Western Front by grieving wealthy families”.

The War Office soon put a stop to the practice, but it would appear that Claude Norman was one of those forty.

The Essex County Chronicle for Friday November 13, 1914, takes up the story.

“The deceased”, said the Chronicle, “was (initially) buried at Néry, near Compiégne, but the body was disinterred.”

It was then “enclosed in a coffin of polished oak, with silver plated furniture” and was “conveyed to Maldon by train”.

A gun carriage transported the coffin (from East Station) to Champion Lodge, Sir Claude insisting on walking behind it all the way.

A firing party, band, escort, bearers and trumpeters were already on site, along with a “large and sympathetic crowd”.

All proceeded through the grounds to the de Crespigny mausoleum, known as the Crescent, where Claude Norman was laid to rest to the crack of three volleys and the haunting sounds of The Last Post.

You would think that was the end to this sad chapter in the de Crespigny family’s lineage, but there is a further twist.

Visit Totham Lodge today and you won’t find any sign of a mausoleum or, come to that, any kind of monument to Claude Norman.

Although there is a tablet to him in Great Totham church, when the family finally ended their residency of Champion Lodge (which is now a care home) in the 1950s, Claude Norman was exhumed yet again and his body re-interred some half a dozen miles away in the churchyard of St Andrew’s, Hatfield Peverel.

The other day I decided to go in search and to pay my respects.

There, on one side of an imposing white, stepped and enclosed cross, is a simple inscription – “Claude Norman Champion de Crespigny. Lieutenant, Queen’s Bays. Born June 14th 1888. Killed in Action September 1st. 1914” – and we might add, buried three times, but now hopefully at rest.