By Lt Col Ian Sawers, Rifles Colonel for the North West
Sometimes, it can be quite extraordinary how the planning for a simple service of commemoration can develop into a much more complex and exciting search for the missing pieces. Let me explain.
As the Rifles Regimental representative in the North West, I was asked to assist Bury Council with organising a ceremony to mark the dedication of the VC memorial stone of Rifleman George Peachment VC, King’s Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC). On 25 September 1915, the 18 year old Peachment was acting as orderly to his Company Commander, Capt Guy Dubs, when the Company was ordered to advance at the start of the Battle of Loos. In the fighting, young Peachment saw that his OC had been wounded and so ran from the shelter he had taken to the exposed position where Capt Dubs lay. In the course of dealing with Dubs’ wounds, Peachment was killed and was subsequently awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Guy Dubs survived his wounds but Peachment’s body was never recovered.
Mr William Dubes, Mrs Barbara Peachment and Rev Hugh Bearn
At an initial meeting in Bury to plan the dedication ceremony, it was agreed that George Peachment’s descendants would be invited to the event as well as local dignitaries, serving soldiers of the Rifles and former members of the KRRC. Descendants of Capt Dubs would also be invited to take part if they could be located. All eyes fell on me and so began a short but intensive search.
First port of call was the Royal Green Jackets Museum at Winchester where a keen volunteer researcher, Blair Southerden, agreed to make a start. He at once discovered that Guy Dubs had died in service (probably because of his wounds) in 1930 but that he had one son, Angus, who had been commissioned into the 16/5th Lancers and who had won an MC in Italy in 1943. The trail went cold for a while until another search revealed that Angus had a son born in BMH Hamburg in 1947. A further search showed that the boy’s name was William but thereafter there was no trace. This was highly unusual because, in the 21st Century, very few people have no internet profile whatsoever! Had he died young or gone abroad?
Determined not to be outdone, I contacted the Home HQ of the 16/5th Lancers who were most helpful and they soon spread the word. A week or so later, I was able to speak to Lt Col Mark Illingworth, a retired officer of the regiment, who remembered his father being chums with a Capt Angus Dubes. “Dubes?” I queried, “No, this chap was called Dubs!” But we persevered and it transpired that the family name had been changed to Dubes. Mark, also a keen genealogist, then conducted a quick search and I soon had the address for William Dubes.
And so it was that, on 20 September 2015, Barbara Peachment, widow of Stan Peachment (George’s great nephew), met William Dubes and his son Michael (grandson and great grandson of Guy Dubs) for the first time. As William so candidly put it, had it not been for the gallantry of the young George Peachment, that historic meeting might never have taken place!
