This is one of a series of posts to mark the international Rugby players who died during The Great War. If anyone has further information on the men concerned, I’d be most grateful if it could be added to the thread. Gareth Deane, Ernest Cotton MC played for Ireland Internationals: 1 : 1909 E- Ernest Deane was born on 4 May 1887, possibly in Limerick, the son of Thomas Stanley Deane and Aileen Annie Deane of 27 Cambridge Terrace, Kingstown, Co Dublin. Played as a Wing for: Corrig College Kingstown, College of Surgeons, Monkstown Profession: Royal Army Medical Corps War service: Captain attached to 2nd Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment, Meerut Division, 1st Indian Expeditionary Force; Mentioned in Despatches and MC Gazetted on 2 October 1915: “For conspicuous gallantry on 22nd August, 1915, near Fauquissart. A standing patrol 120 yards in front of our line was bombed by the enemy at about 10 pm, the only notification being two loud bomb explosions. Captain Deane, without any knowledge of the enemy’s strength, at once got over the parapet and ran by himself to the spot under rifle and machine gun fire. Finding four wounded men he returned for stretchers and got them back into safety. This is not the first time that Captain Deane’s gallantry under fire has been brought to notice.” He was killed in action on 25 September 1915, at Neuve Chappelle, and is buried in Rue-du-Bacquerot No 1 Military Cemetery, Laventie, Pas de Calais, France [II. D. 14.]. Remarks: An account of the 2nd Leicesters on 25 September 1915 by Lt George Grossmith, an officer of the Battalion, appears in The Battle of Loos, by Philip Warner. “My battalion, as such, no longer exists; it was decimated, along with nearly all the other regiments of the Meerut Division of our Indian Corps. Of my battalion, there are only two officers and a few men who were not killed or wounded.”
He has a Wiki .... not much on it though !! Ernest Cotton Deane (1887-1915) was an Irish rugby international. He won one cap against England in 1909. Like fellow international Basil Maclear, Deane was killed in action during the First World War, serving as a captain with the Royal Army Medical Corps, attached to the Leicestershire Regiment near Laventie. He was buried in the Rue-du-Bacquerot No.1 Military Cemetery nearby In Memory of Captain ERNEST COTTON DEANE M C, Mentioned in Despatches Royal Army Medical Corps attd. 2nd Bn., Leicestershire Regiment who died age 28 on 25 September 1915 Son of Thomas Stanley Deane and Aileen Annie Deane, of 27, Cambridge Terrace, York Rd., Kingstown, Co. Dublin. Remembered with honour RUE-DU-BACQUEROT No.1 MILITARY CEMETERY, LAVENTIE
In the 1911 census ... he was a Medical Practitioner and he was a visitor in the home of William Joynt house number 25 in Malahide - Church St. (Malahide, Dublin) http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000010022/
I found this ... but I can't get in there ..... http://www.springerlink.com/content/1u672247h0614163/
