Ralph Edward Culverhouse Mead was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent on Friday, 3rd June 1898 and baptised on Saturday, 2nd July of the same year. He was the second child and only son of Frank Mead and Grace Letitia Barbara Mackenzie and his older sister was Dorothy. Ralph’s mother Grace died on the 5th August 1900 at Oakfield Cottage, Dodd’s Lane in Piccott’s End when he was only two-years-old. Oakfield Cottage still stands on Dodd’s Lane today. 

Ralph’s father Frank was a ‘Flour Miller’ in Chelsea and a third generation miller, following on from his Grandfather William and Father Edward who originally had milling interests in Tring. Ralph’s Grandfather Edward had grown the business, acquiring premises in Wendover, Watford, Hunton Bridge and Chelsea. He is believed to have installed the country’s first roller mill at Chelsea and this is where Frank plied his trade. The success of the business meant that Ralph was born into a wealthy family and his father ensured that he had the best schooling he could afford.

Ralph first went to his local infants’ school in Glendower Place, Kensington, before moving to North Down Hill, a private boarding school in Margate and then briefly to Tonbridge School. Finally, he went on to the King’s School Canterbury, the oldest continuously operating school in the world which was founded in 597 A.D. He was at King’s from January 1913 to July 1916 and whilst there he won a Junior Scholarship in November 1913 and a Senior Scholarship in June 1915.

  

Ralph was a member of the Officer Training Corps, becoming Quartermaster Sergeant and a keen cricketer and rugby player, winning ‘blues’ in both. In 1916, he was awarded an Open Classical Exhibition to Worcester College, Oxford, with a view to a medical career, but instead he enlisted with the Oxford University Officer Training Corps until he was old enough to enter a cadet battalion.

In early 1917 he was working at the Guards Camp at Pirbright with the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps with the stated aim of gaining command of a tank. Later that year, on the 27th June, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion The Buffs (East Kent Regiment) and embarked for Belgium on 1st September.

It took until the end of the month for Ralph to arrive with his new Battalion which was at rest near Poperinghe training new drafts of men recently arrived from England. On the evening he arrived, a German aircraft dropped bombs into the camp, doing a great deal of damage. It was dark when the aeroplane came over at 7.20pm and dropped six bombs right into the camp which was very congested. This resulted in the death of twenty-seven men and the wounding of sixty-six others.

Ralph was one of the men killed and he died on Saturday, 29th September 1917. He had been in Flanders for exactly four weeks and with his Battalion for less than a day when he was killed.

His death was reported in the Hemel Hempstead Gazette in October. (see extract)

He is commemorated on the Roll of Honour at King’s School Canterbury, the memorial at Tonbridge School and also at Worcester College, Oxford.

Ralph is Remembered with Honour in Nine Elms British Cemetery, West Vlaanderen, Belgium, where he is interred in Grave III. A. 2.

The inscription on his headstone, requested by his father Frank reads: “ONLY SON OF FRANK AND GRACE MEAD OF CHELSEA FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH”

He was only 19 years old when he died.

Ralph was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.