Richard Percy Buxton





Castle Street, home of the Weston family (picture from SWOP website)

Memorial for Richard Percy Buxton in High Wycombe Cemetery





Richard Percy Buxton 1889 - 1918

I was born in April 1889 to Henry and Emily Buxton, in Leicester, England. I had an older sister called Nellie, and a younger sister called Lilian. Not long after I was born we moved to Wavendon in Buckinghamshire. My dad was the headmaster of the local elementary school, and my mum was a teacher there too. We had a reasonable quality of life, and even employed a servant called Emily Field. After going through school myself, I went off to train as a teacher at the Culham Training College in Abingdon. My link to High Wycombe comes through my wife, Dorothy. Before we married she was Dorothy Weston. Her dad, Aubrey, was an organist and professor of music in High Wycombe. We married in 1915, and bought ourselves a house at 18 Herndon Road in Wandsworth, Surrey.

Given that I was a teacher, when I signed up with the 4th battalion, Ox and Bucks Light Infantry, I went in as a sergeant, second in command of a platoon. I was soon commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, and then rose to become the captain in charge of D company, which was some 250 strong, on paper at least. It was 1916 before I was posted overseas. We soon saw action, taking part in several offensives on the Somme, such as at Albert on 19th July and Pozieres on 23rd. We beat off a fairly fierce attack by the Prussian Guard at Ovillers in August, then moved up to Flanders where we took part in several more actions. Each battle was strenuous, and I lost many good friends along the way.

With things calming down on the Western Front, in November 1917 our battalion was deployed to Italy to stiffen the Italian resistance to enemy attacks after a recent disaster at Caporetto. We rotated between the front line, support duties, and rest, first at Montello and then the Asiago sector, an area in the province of Vicenza.

We were situated opposite enemy trenches at Canove when I saw my final action. On the night of the 14th of June 1918, at 3am precisely, we saw hundreds of signal flares shoot up into the night time sky; we immediately began preparing for battle. It was an unexpected attack, launched by the Austro-Hungarians. During the battle, which was later known as the Battle of Asiago, my battalion was one of five holding the front line. It was a tense battle and it was evident that defeat was growing closer. We were briefly pushed from our trenches, but fought back, giving it everything that we could. The battalion eventually recaptured the position, driving the Austrians back and capturing hundreds of prisoners. We even earned a mention in the despatches of the Commander-in-Chief in Italy. Unfortunately, I did not live to see this.

At some point in the battle I was severely wounded and passed away. My poor wife, after hearing that I was gone, died soon after me on the 14th of October 1918. She was buried in her home town of High Wycombe. My name was added to the headstone, although my body still lies in the Boscon British cemetery in Asiago, Italy.



Researched by Neill George, Gill Evans, and the girls of Wycombe Abbey School

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