17 Facts About Raymond Asquith

Raymond Asquith was educated at Winchester, from where he won a scholarship to Balliol in 1896, taking with him a reputation for brilliance.

Raymond Asquith won the Ireland, Derby, and Craven scholarships, and graduated with first-class honours.

The tall, handsome Raymond Asquith was a member of the Coterie, a group of Edwardian socialites and intellectuals.

Raymond Asquith was junior counsel in the North Atlantic Fisheries Arbitration and the British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and was considered a putative Liberal candidate for Derby.

Raymond Asquith was initially commissioned, on 17 December 1914, as a second lieutenant into the 16th Battalion, London Regiment.

Raymond Asquith was transferred to the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards on 14 August 1915, and assigned as a staff officer, but he requested to be returned to active duty with his battalion, a request granted before the Battle of the Somme.

Raymond Asquith died whilst being carried back to British lines.

Raymond Asquith was immensely admired, but he did not lay himself out to acquire popularity, and in the ordinary man he inspired awe rather than liking.

Raymond Asquith's courtesy was without warmth, he was apt to be intolerant of mediocrity, and he had no desire for facile acquaintanceships.

Raymond Asquith would destroy some piece of honest sentiment with a jest, and he had no respect for the sacred places of dull men.

Raymond Asquith kept himself for his friends and refused to bother about the world.

Buchan's analysis of Raymond Asquith's personality is endorsed by several other contemporaries who found him clever but rather arrogant, cold, cynical and aloof.

Raymond Asquith is the subject of a memorial in St Andrew's Church near the family home in Mells in Somerset, and is listed on Mells War Memorial; both memorials were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, a friend of the Asquith family.

Raymond Asquith was married on 25 July 1907 to Katharine Frances Horner, younger daughter of Sir John Francis Fortescue Horner, of Mells, Somerset, descended from Thomas Horner, the Tudor figure on whom the nursery rhyme 'Little Jack Horner' is sometimes said to be based.

Raymond Asquith died nearly ten years before his father was raised to the House of Lords in 1925 as Earl of Oxford and Raymond Asquith.

Raymond Asquith was buried in France, but his memorial in St Andrew's Church, Mells was designed by his mother's friend Edwin Lutyens, who was a patron of Monsignor Ronald Knox.

Raymond Asquith remained in touch with Evelyn Waugh, another convert.