Richard Arthur Maurice Lutener was the son of the Reverend William Maurice Bonnor Lutener, vicar of St Oswald’s Church, Oswestry. Richard had been born in 1896 at Altrincham. The family had moved to Oswestry in 1908 when his father had been appointed to the vicarship. His mother was Annie Laura ne Gore, originally from Liverpool. He was the eldest with two sisters Barbara and Christine. They lived at the vicarage then on at 40 Church Street (now Bellan House School). One grandfather, William Lutener, was the Vicar of Harthill, Cheshire and the other, Canon Arthur Gore, was the Incumbent of St. Luke’s, Liverpool (the ‘Bombed Out Church’) and then at Bowden, Altrincham.

Richard was educated at Shrewsbury School and in 1914 went up to Keble College, Oxford. At both institutions he had been in the Officer Training Corps. His university studies were curtailed by the outbreak of war. He gained his commission in December 1914, age 19, in the 6 Bn King’s Shropshire Light Infantry – Oswestry Pals. He went over to France with the battalion in July 1915.

Richard was put in charge of the battalion snipers section and trained them up to such a high standard that the Corps Commander, Lord Cavan, ordered that other units should adopt his methods.

On the 6 April 1916 the battalion was in the front line at Pilkem Ridge in the Ypres Salient. It was just after 1.00pm. Over the next half hour a German sniper would shoot 4 men. Lutener and his section were desperately trying to spot where the sniper’s nest was. They were using a metal plate with a spy hole in it as a shield set into the parapet allowing them to look out over enemy positions. His best sniper was unable to spot the enemy so Lutener took his place. As he moved into position the sniper fired again. The bullet hit him in the head. He died soon after without regaining consciousness. Sergeant 12076 JA Wilshaw, 5 Bn KSLI att. 6Bn, for sniper instruction, went to Lutener’s aid and was himself fatally shot in the neck by the same sniper. The two were buried next to each other that evening in Essex Farm Cemetery. Men from the company attended. Richard Lutener is also commemorated on war memorials at St Oswald’s Church, Shrewsbury School and Keble College. He is also on the Anglican Church Sons of Clergy Roll of Honour.

A notice was put in the Personal Column of the Advertiser on 14 April 1916 – ‘Much regret was felt in Oswestry on Monday morning when it was learned that Lt. RAM Lutener and Flight Lt. William Norman Thomas had been killed in action, the first named on Thursday and the latter on Saturday, the sad intelligence being officially conveyed to the bereaved parents from the war Office early that morning’.

Sergeant 12076 JA Wilshaw, 1Bn KSLI. (CWGC) was from Kinnerley and is commemorated on that village’s war memorial – as is his brother Private 15106 MB Wilshaw 5Bn KSLI (CWGC), KIA 28 August 1916. Sergt Wilshaw was an ex Oswestry School boy. He worked as a student teacher at Kinnerley School and afterwards at St George’s School Wellington. Also in Essex Farm Cemetery, and nearby to Lt. Lutener and Sgt. Wilshaw, are the graves of Private 11882 William Watkin, 6 Bn KSLI  and Private 12247 John Evan Lloyd (CWGC), likely two more of the enemy sniper’s victims. Private Lloyd was from Llanrhaeadr ym Mochnant and is recorded on the war memorial there. Also, it was in Essex Farm Cemetery that Lt Colonel John McCrae wrote the well known war poem ‘In Flanders Fields’.

Acknowledgements. Photo – By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Keble College, Oxford. Keble College, Oxford Roll of Honour . Trafford War War Dead – WMTrafford

References and Sources

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