Lieut. Martin Collier (RN)

The war continues to take its toll of our very best and best-loved Old Boys. Just as it seemed we would go through January without loss, we read with the heaviest of hearts today that Martin Collier has been lost at sea.

He was in command of submarine H10, which went out on a mission and has not returned. The obituary in The Times today gives the date of his death as being January 19th and gave these details of his life:

 “He distinguished himself as an athlete. Both at Osborne and Dartmouth he won a reputation in boxing and at Rugby football. Later he played for the Navy, the United Services and the South.

In the spring of 1914, in the last Army and Navy Boxing Championship Meeting at Portsmouth, he won the championship in the officers’ light heavies.

One who knew him well writes: ‘He was a real, clean, Christian gentleman… and the example he set of simple, manly religion greatly impressed the officers and men not only of his own crew, but of the whole depot.’”

He is another of whom I can say that he loved the School as the School loved him. A chasm has swallowed him up leaving us, his friends of a life-time, bereft. There is so much more to be said about Martin, and I am sure that once we have composed ourselves, we will address this.