The Streatham Society
  • Home
  • Blogs & Posts
  • Events
  • Newsletters
  • Publications
  • Donations
  • Membership
  • Events
  • Guided Walks
  • Virtual Self Guided Walks
  • Photo Gallery
  • Research and Queries
  • Planning and Regeneration
  • Heritage and Conservation
  • WW1 Roll Of Honour
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Instagram posts
  • Archive News
  • Members' Page

Geoffrey St George Shillington Cather VC

11/10/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
On This Day 11th October 1890 Geoffrey Cather was born

Geoffrey St George Shillington Cather was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration for valour ‘in the face of the enemy’. He died on the Somme battlefield on 2nd July 1916 and his actions in putting other lives ahead of his own is a story that truly deserves to be remembered.
Lt Cather VC was born 11th October 1890 at 55, Christchurch Road, Streatham Hill. His father was a partner in Tetley Tea, and Geoffrey followed him into the firm as a tea buyer’s assistant. He served as a Private in the Artists Rifles from 1909 to 1911 but resigned his commission when Tetley posted him to New York and Canada. With War on the horizon, he returned in 1914 and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers in May 1915, and was swiftly promoted to the role of adjutant. Letters written by his Commanding Officer reveal the esteem in which the young tea-buyer was held.
​
On the 1st of July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, Geoffrey’s regiment attacked the German lines near the village of Beaumont Hamel. By nightfall 9 officers and 235 men had been killed or wounded, and many were lying in no man’s land. That evening, Geoffrey went out to help retrieve the injured under heavy artillery fire, and by midnight he had personally carried in three men. At 8am the following morning he went out again and brought in another wounded man and gave water to others. It was in the act of trying to assist another soldier that he was killed by machine gun fire at 10.30am. His widowed mother received the VC from he King at Buckingham Palace on the 31st of March 1917. It was later given by his brother to the Royal Irish Fusiliers Regimental Museum in Armagh.
Geoffrey is commemorated on various memorials in Limpsfield, at Rugby School, St Anne’s Cathedral Belfast, Portadown and at the Ulster Tower and the Thiepval Memorial in France. Now, a hundred years on, his bravery was honoured in his birthplace a commemorative ‘paving’ stone laid by Lambeth Council at the Streatham War Memorial, Streatham Common in 2016
Image: Gazette 9 September 1916
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Mark Bery, Secretary Streatham Society

    Archives

    May 2025
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020

Next Meeting





Our next event is a  a talk on the 3rd June 2025 by Sam Cullen, The Lost Pubs of South London.

​This follows our AGM at 6:30pm










​

Social media & email

Picture