DEATH' OF COLONEL MARKER.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15174, 12 January 1915, Page 2

DEATH' OF COLONEL MARKER.

SOLDIER AND TniITER.

Lord Kitchener has lost another of his trusted comrades by the death on November 13th, at Boulogne, from wounds received in action, of Colonel Raymond John Marker, who was his aide-de-camp in South Africa and India and a personal secretary of no ordinary kind. Raymond Marker's loss will sadden many in ami out of the Service (says the '"Morning Post"), for he was a man of great character and of a most lovable nature. Nothing pleased him better than a rousing field day with the Public Schools, and the last of the operations which he attended .was on the Fox Hills, when the Schools Battalion, encamped by the side of Mitchett Lake, opposed his Coldstream Guards, on the Surrey plateau overlooking Normandy. It was a fine charge that Winchester. Duhvieh. King's College School, and others made upon the Gur.rcLsnieii's lines, and Colonel Marker incidentally said thai that was tho wa\ it would be done in the nest war. He was right.

Once a Guardsman always a Guardsman was true of Raymond Marker, whose regiment was everything to him. He was adjutant of one ct' tho battalions wlion a subaltern. a captain and a major in the Ist Battalion, and lieuten-ant-colonel of" the '2nd. He deroted rr.uc-h of his leisure time in recent years to writing a history of the Coldstream Guards for private circulation, and this hook is a fine example of sound lines for such a work. He dealt, admirably with the march cf Monck's ''ion kcmlli for the Restoration, and brought out all the historic points in the career of the "Second Guards." He had much service on the personal Staffs of famous men. beginning with t>ir Joseph "West' Ridgeway. Governor and Comniander-in-Chief of Ceylon. From Colombo ho went tc. Calcutta as aide-de-wimp to Lord Curzon. the Viceroy of India, and from thence to South Africa, where he joined the Staff of "Lord Kitchener. He went to India with him when his chief was appointed to the command there, but came home for a short srnll as Private. Secretary to Mr Arnold-Forster at the War Ofiice. The; defeat of the Unionist Government at the polls in 1906 ended this employment, and he returned to Lord Kitchener in India and remained with him \intil the latter came home in 19C9. He then took up a Territorial appointment with the Kent. Surrey, and .Middlesex troops, and a year ago was by Sir John French to succeed Colonel H. J. l>u Cane as Assistant Quartormaster-General at Aldershot. He passed through the Staff College in 190 i, but had previously qualified at the Cape for fitaft employment by reason of service on the Jiold. He did well against the Hoers. being in a s,core of engagements from the Vet River to the rounding up of the rebels it. Cape Colony. He was always being brought to the notice of the Generals Commanding, and as a result he got a brevet step <md the 3XS.O.