* Lieutenant Desmond Patrick Webb Carter

By kind permission of the Carter-Webb Family

Lieutenant Desmond Patrick Webb Carter was born in 1897 and was a pupil in The High School from 1908 to 1910.  At 19 years of age, he was one of the youngest past pupils of the school to die in the Great War.

He came from generations of senior army officers; it seemed that military life was in his blood.
He was an exceptionally clever young man, who loved mathematics and science with a keen passion.  He played the flute and was enjoyed sport, especially cricket and football and in July 1914, before he was seventeen years old, he passed 1st into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, (the precursor of Sandhurst today) scoring over 12,500 marks, - a total which is probably a record for a candidate of his age.
Source:  An obituary in the St Paul’s school magazine, Pauline

  ~  His grandfather, Edward Carter, was an army officer in his youth, who spent some time in India, and was later Governor of Athy Prison, Kildare.

~  His father was Brigadier-General Sir John Carter KCMG, of Malahide, County Dublin.

~  His brother was Brigadier Brian Wolsey Webb-Carter DSO and Bar, OBE (1901–1981)

~  More recently, his nephew, the late  Major General Sir Evelyn John Webb-Carter KCV, OBE,  DL, was the last 'Colonel of The Regiment' of The Duke of Wellington's Regiment (West Riding) (1999–2006), and, amongst other things, the Chairman of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother's 100th birthday celebrations in 2000.

We know that Desmond P.W. Carter was born in Bedford, England, but some of his siblings were born in India and Hong Kong, showing the nomadic existence of military life that his family was accustomed to.
However, we know very little of  Desmond Webb Carter's military life, but that he was a Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers 1st Field Signal Company, and that he died 12th December, 1916.  He is buried in Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension in France, (grave no. IV. E. 29).
Source: Michelle Burrowes
His commission appears in the London Gazette 9th February, 1915 
Source:  Terry Reeves