Hugh DURANT

Hugh Durant took an engineering apprenticeship after leaving school, before enlisting in the 9th Queen’s Own Lancers in 1897. He served in the Boer war and won the Queen’s South Africa medal and following Victoria’s death, later won the King’s South Africa medal. An expert shot, he won the revolver championship of South Africa before winning at Bisley in 1911. The following year he won two pistol bronze medals at the Olympics and proved his all-round ability by taking part in the first ever Olympic modern pentathlon competition, finishing 18th. Amongst his long list of shooting victories, he won the Whitbread Challenge medal in four consecutive years 1911-14. Durant also won many NRA medals and in 1911 he won the ARA Revolver gold medal.

In 1914 he was injured in France during the charge of Moncel, the last all-lancers combat of World War I for which he was mentioned in dispatches, and also awarded the French Medaille Militaire in 1915. Sadly, Hugh Durant lost his life the following year, when a mortar bomb belonging to the 62nd Trench Mortar Battery, which was under his command at the time, exploded prematurely upon being fired, killing him outright.