On This Day, 31 July 1917

Birmingham Mail

Tuesday 31 July 1917

BIRMINGHAM OFFICER’S GALLANTRY

Sec.-Lieut (Temporary Lieut.) William Edmund Vaudrey, R.G.A., who has been awarded the Military Cross for “Conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in heading a rescue party at great personal risk to release men of his battery who had been buried by enemy’s shell fire,” is aged 23, and is the youngest son of Mr. J. C. Vaudrey, 71, Westfield Road, Edgbaston. “Owing entirely to his promptness and splendid example” continue the report, “their lives were saved.”

Lieut. Vaudrey was educated at the Lickey Hills School, Cheltenham College, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He was a member of the O.T.C. at Cheltenham and at Caius College, obtained his commission in October, 1914, and went to the front in June the following year. He was an accomplished oarsman, and rowed for Cheltenham College in 1911 and 1912, and for Caius in 1913 and 1914 (May boat and Henley). His elder brother, Lieut. R. H. N. Vaudrey, R.E., is also serving in France.