On Sunday 13 November, people in Marlow will again gather around the town’s memorial to commemorate the local men who died in the First World War and subsequent conflicts. 

This year’s Remembrance Day commemorations have a special poignancy as they coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death in battle of Lieutenant-Commander Frederick Kelly. 

Many modern-day residents of Marlow can rightly be forgiven for not knowing much about Frederick Kelly, who has fallen into some obscurity over the passage of the last 100 years. 

But now seems the perfect time to revive the memory and celebrate the achievements of this remarkable local man who enjoyed considerable success as a sportsman and composer.

Kelly was born in Australia in 1881, but moved to England at an early age where he was educated at Eton and then Oxford University. 

He took up rowing and won a succession of trophies at major events, including Henley Royal Regatta where he rowed for the Leander Club. 

In 1905 he won the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley Regatta in a record time that was not beaten for another thirty years. His crowning achievement as a rower was in 1908 when he was a member of the Great Britain eight crew that won gold medal at the London Olympics. 

After the Olympics, Kelly retired from competitive row and moved to Bisham where he lived with his sister in a house on the banks of the Thames. He continued to row regularly on the river between Marlow and Temple and became something of a local sporting celebrity – his appearances in his sculling boat were frequently reported with enthusiasm by what was then the South Bucks Free Press. 

Although Kelly was lightly built, he was famous as a rower for what one journalist described as 'his natural sense of poise and rhythm that made his boat a live thing under him'.

While he didn’t row competitively for Marlow Rowing Club, Kelly was an active member and is amongst the 19 club members who died during the First World War and are commemorated on the memorial inside the modern-day clubhouse.

But Frederick Kelly was more than just a very talented rower. From an early age, he showed considerable abilities as a musician and won a music scholarship to Oxford University in 1903. 

In addition to his rowing, he became president of the University Musical Club and gained a reputation as a talented pianist.

After finishing his degree at Oxford, Kelly studied the piano and, after retiring from competitive rowing, performed regularly in London and overseas. 

In addition, he began composing music around 1902 and continued to do so until his death in 1916.  Most of his composition were songs, pieces for the piano or chamber music for strings.

When the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914, Kelly soon volunteered for service. He was commissioned as an officer into the Royal Naval Division where, because of his lack of previous military experience, he had to undergo a period of intensive training.

Between February 1915 and January 1916, he fought in the unsuccessful Gallipoli campaign in modern-day Turkey and was twice wounded in action. 

He was one of the last British soldiers to leave in the withdrawal from the Gallipoli peninsula, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery and promoted to the lieutenant-commander.

Despite his military service, there was no let-up in Kelly’s musical composition. In fact, many believe that he wrote his best music during his war years. 

His most famous composition was the elegy for harp and strings that he wrote in 1915 in memory of this friend, the poet Rupert Brooke, who died at the start of the Gallipoli campaign.

In May 1916, Kelly’s unit was deployed to fight on the Western Front in France where he took part in the Battle of the Somme. Despite frequent shelling and gas attacks, Kelly’s diaries from the period show that he continued to write music. 

He also organised and conducted the regimental band, including for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture to the sounds of British artillery guns.

Most of the men who enlisted and trained with Kelly had been killed by the autumn of 1916 and he became increasingly convinced that he himself would not survive the conflict.  On the morning of 13 November 1916, his unit was involved in one of the last engagements of the Battle of the Somme.  T

he assault on German positions soon got into difficulty and it was reported that ‘Kelly, setting an example at the head of his men, had led an attack on a bombing post’ where he was killed instantly by machine-gun fire.  He is buried in Martinsart British Cemetery in France. 

His sister Maisie commissioned the sculptor Eric Gill to design a memorial to him and the other men from Bisham who died during the war. It still stands today near Bisham Abbey.

A memorial concert of his music was held in Kelly’s honour at Wigmore Hall in London in May 1919. After that, his achievements as a composer were sadly largely forgotten but there has been an overdue revival of interest in him in recent years. 

An increasing number of recordings have been made of his compositions and The Elegy for Strings, In Memoriam Rupert Brooke was played at the BBC Proms in 2014.

To commemorate the life and achievements of this remarkable local man, the Chiltern Camerata are holding a concert in All Saints’ Church in Marlow at 7.30pm on Saturday 12 November, the eve of the 100th anniversary of his death. 

The programme will include many of his compositions and those of some of his contemporaries. Tickets are £10 (free for under 18s) and are available at the door on the night or in advance from the Information Office at Marlow Library.

Written by Andy Ford.