32nd IEE Member to Fall in World War 1 –Lieutenant A W Brydon

Lieutenant Alec Whitworth Brydon of the 4th Battalion The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) (T.F.), died 31 August 1915, the 32nd member of the IEE to die in World War 1.

Alec Brydon was educated at Rossall School, Lancashire (1898-1901). He was apprenticed in 1901 with The Lancashire Dynamo and Motor Company, Manchester, and during his apprenticeship he attended evening classes in electrical engineering at the Municipal School of Technology, Manchester (1902-1907). When his apprenticeship ended in 1906 Alec joined Lancashire Dynamo and Motor Company on its Technical Staff as an Assistant Engineer and he stayed working for the company in various positions until 1912 when he resigned to enter an engineering partnership. Alec became a partner in Rhodes, Brydon and Company of Stockport, Cheshire, and was appointed Managing Director. He relinquished this position in the summer of 1914 in order to serve in the Army.

Alec was given a Commission in the Territorial Force in September 1914 and was promoted to Lieutenant in March 1915. The requirement for further reinforcements for the Gallipoli Peninsula in the summer of 1915 resulted in Alec’s Division sailing for the Dardanelles Theatre of Operation on 17 July 1915. His Division took part in the fierce fighting of The Battles of Suvla (6-21 August 1915). Operations on 21 August were the last of scale on the Suvla front but Alec’s Division continued to serve on the front. On the evening of 31 August 1915, he led a machine-gun detachment into the front-line trenches opposite the Turkish position. Shortly after reaching the portion of the line assigned to his party, he was shot through the head by a sniper’s bullet and killed instantaneously.

Lieutenant Brydon’s obituary was published in the IEE World War I Honour Roll and these details have been reproduced below.