The 1916-1919 war diary of Guy Holford Benson (1888-1975) of...

Hammer

£320

The 1916-1919 war diary of Guy Holford Benson (1888-1975) of the West Kent Yeomanry and 9th Lancers. Having survived Gallipoli, the diary begins on June 25th 1916 when he sets out for from London for the Western Front where he is to serve as an intelligence officer of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade:  ‘Started from Victoria early in morning. Spent whole day at Folkstone. Telephoned I. in the afternoon. Crossed to Boulogne about 9 o’clock. Lovely day. Stopped in Boulogne till 1 in the morning, then started by train for Abbeville.’ (I. was presumably his 20-year-old fiancée, Lady Irene Curzon.) It ends on April 29th 1919 ‘Bitterly cold rain storms. Mrs Tiley had a bad cold, so we went straight through to Boulogne arriving for lunch. Caught by a control post leaving Cassel.’ 
Guy Benson was the eldest son of the merchant banker, art connoisseur and collector, Robert ‘Robin’ Benson. He was educated at Eton and joined the family business Robert Benson & Co (Kleinwort Benson from 1963) when he came down from Balliol in 1911. In 1913 he was appointed  2nd Lieutenant in the West Kent (Queen's Own) Yeomanry. Shortly before the outbreak of war, the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, met him and his brother, Con, and described them to Venetia Stanley as 'the two nicest and most desirable young men (with O.C. [Asquith's favourite son]) of my whole acquaintance - manly, good-looking, with charming manners and and plenty of intelligence.'  In 1919 he became a partner in the family bank and in 1921 he married Lady Elcho (née Lady Violet ‘Letty’ Manners), whose husband (Hugo Charteris) had been killed in action in 1916.