Lieutenant-Colonel Charles William Reginald Duncombe 2nd Earl of Feversham

Killed in action aged 37
Buried AIF Burial Ground at Flers, Somme. III L 29

Charles William Reginald was the son of William Duncombe, Viscount Helmsley, elder son of William Duncombe, 1st Earl of Feversham. His mother was Lady Muriel Frances Louisa, daughter of Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 19th Earl of Shrewsbury. From 1881 to 1915 he was known as Viscount Helmsley.

Educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, he was a British Conservative Party politician and soldier.

In 1904, he married Lady Marjorie Blanche Eva Greville, daughter of Francis Greville, 5th Earl of Warwick. They had two sons and one daughter. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Thirsk and Malton in 1906 and held the seat until he inherited his title on the death of his grandfather in 1915.

Feversham commanded the Yorkshire Hussars, served in France and Belgium in 1914 and 1916, and was Mentioned in Dispatches in France in 1916. He was killed in action at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, while commanding 21st Battalion (Yeoman Rifles) King's Royal Rifle Corps, the battalion had been formed in 1915 at Helmsley. "Dogs were frequent visitors to the trenches and he had taken his deerhound to war: it too was killed and was buried with him" (Tommy by Richard Holmes).

There is a Memorial Cross to him outside the Church of St. Mary’s, Rievaulx.

“Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Feversham (Charles William Reginald Duncombe), who died on the 15th of September 1916, commanding the 21st Kings Royal Rifle Corps (also known as the Yeomans Rifles) is buried here. His body was only located several weeks later when his battalion (with the future Prime Minister Antony Eden then acting adjutant) was based at Factory Corner and located it on the 10th of October 1916. Feversham's body was buried in a field to the south of the cemetery. The grave was made more permanent by his family after the end of the First World War. After the end of the Second World War, his body was moved the short distance to here. The grave beside his contains the remains of an unknown Royal Fusilier, found over 50 years later near Guedecourt and reburied here in April 2003.”

His Estate amounted to £63,058 4s 3d. Probate granted to the Hon William Gervase Beckett MP, Charles William Ernest Duncombe, Colonel H M Army, and Sir Walter Trower, Knight.

He was succeeded in the earldom by his ten-year-old son Charles who also became a Conservative politician. His younger son the Hon. David was killed in a car accident in 1927, aged 17. The Dowager Lady Feversham married the Conservative politician Gervase Beckett in 1917.