Basil Arthur Horsfall VC

b. 04/10/1887 Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). d. 21/03/1918 Moyenneville, France.

Basil Arthur Horsfall (1887-1918) was born on 4th October 1887 at Kelvin Gerve, Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). His father, Charles William Horsfall, was born in Stepney, Middlesex, and went to Ceylon in the 1860s. He became a pioneer of the tea and coffee industry there. He married Maria Henrietta Layard on 16th April 1869. She was the niece of Sir Henry Layard, the explorer and archaelogist who discovered the ruins of Nineveh. Basil had seven siblings.

Basil A Horsfall VC

Basil was educated firstly in Ceylon at St Thomas’ College in Colombo, before being sent to England to boarding school at Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School, Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He was a sports all-rounder and excelled at cricket. After school he worked for Barclay’s Bank in London before returning to Ceylon where he became a rubber planter on the Mundamani Estate. Later he was an accountant with the Public Works Department of Ceylon, rising to financial assistant by the outbreak of war. Basil became a Freemason, being initiated into the Sphinx Lodge of the Irish Constitution on 19th April 1915.

He was a member of the Ceylon Engineers, a locally-raised force of European expatriates largely drawn from the Public Works Department which was mobilised for the duration of World War I. He requested leave in order to travel to England and was released from his civil appointment but not allowed to leave the Ceylon Engineers, who were carrying out important work.

In July 1916, aged 28, having finally got permission, he returned to Britain where he was gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment, on 19 December 1916. He travelled to France in the spring of 1917 and was wounded on 11th May 1917 while serving with the 1st Battalion and after recovery and convalescence in England was attached to the 11th (Service)Battalion, East Lancashire Regiment (the Accrington Pals) on 24th October 1917. Two of his three brothers were also wounded on the same day as Basil.

On 27th March 1918, between Moyenneville and Ablainzevelle, France, when the enemy attacked Second Lieutenant Horsfall’s centre platoon, his three forward sections were driven back and he was wounded in the head by enemy fire. Ignoring the wound, he immediately reorganised what remained of his troops and counterattacked to regain his original position. Despite the severity of his head wound, he refused to go to the dressing station, as the three other officers in his company had been killed. Later, he made another counterattack, but was ordered to withdraw. The last to leave his position, he was shot soon afterwards.

Horsfall’s body was never recovered, and he was commemorated on the Arras Memorial to the Missing. His VC, in its leather case, was presented to his parents at a very grand military parade on the Galle Face in Colombo on 16th August 1918. The Governor of Ceylon also presented a letter from King George V to his parents. Basil is also commemorated with a VC commemorative stone at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, alongside 144 other overseas born recipients of the VC in the Great War. He is also named on the Regimental Victoria Cross Memorial in Blackburn Cathedral. He also is named on the War Memorial at Sir William Borlase’s Grammar School. He also has a VC commemorative stone at the Accrington Pals Memorial in Cannon Street, unveiled on 27th March 2018.

In addition to the VC he was awarded the British War Medal 1914-20 and Victory Medal 1914-19. In March 1982, his medals, accompanied by a wealth of documents, were offered for sale at Spink’s with a catalogue price of £9,750. They were obtained on loan by the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery, but the medals are now owned by the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment Museum, Preston, Lancashire.

LOCATION OF MEDAL: QUEENS LANCASHIRE REGIMENT MUSEUM, PRESTON.

BURIAL PLACE: NO KNOWN GRAVE – ON ARRAS MEMORIAL, FRANCE. BAY 6.