Henry Hadley (27 March 1863 – 5 August 1914) was an English civilian who was fatally shot in Germany, allegedly while resisting arrest, on 3 August 1914, the day before the United Kingdom's entry into the First World War.^[2] He is sometimes described as the "first British casualty" of World War I.^[2][3]

Early life and family

Hadley was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.^[4] His father, also Henry Hadley (1812–1874), had been a senior doctor in the British Army, serving as a surgeon with the 40th Foot and the Rifle Brigade, in Australia with the 11th Foot and 99th Foot,^[5] at the Castle Hospital at Balaklava in the Crimean War, before retiring in 1861 with the honorary rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals.^[6] His mother, Alpha Clementia Dunn, was from Hobart, Tasmania.^[7] His paternal grandfather, also Henry Hadley (1762–1830), was the physician of Erasmus Darwin and married Darwin's illegitimate daughter Susannah Parker (1772–1856) in 1809.^[8]

He was educated at Cheltenham College, attended the Royal Military Academy Woolwich,^[9] and served as a lieutenant in the 1st West India Regiment from 1887 to 1890.^[2][10][11] He later became a teacher of languages.

Death

Hadley had been teaching in Berlin for three or four years, but decided to move to Paris following Germany's declarations of war against Russia on 1 August 1914 and then France on 3 August, and its ultimatum to Belgium, in the preceding days.^[2] At 1:25 pm local time on 3 August, Hadley and his English housekeeper, Elizabeth Pratley, caught a train to Cologne from Berlin's Friedrichstraße station, intending to change trains there.^[2]

A conductor on the train became suspicious of his behaviour, and Hadley became involved in an altercation while the train was stopped at Gelsenkirchen station.^[12][13] It was later claimed that Hadley had spoken in several foreign languages, did not appear to know where he was travelling to, argued with a waiter in the dining car, and made gestures at German officers.^[13] After briefly returning to his seat, he was shot in the stomach while in the train's corridor by a Prussian military officer, First Lieutenant Nicolay.^[2][12]

Hadley was taken by ambulance to the Evangelische Krankenhaus in Gelsenkirchen, and died there at 3:15 am local time on 5 August – just three hours after the UK declared war on Germany.^[13] He was buried in a pauper's grave in zone 11, division 9^[2] of the Protestant cemetery at Gelsenkirchen,^[3] but the exact site of the burial is no longer known.^[14]

Elizabeth Pratley was interrogated as a potential spy, at a military prison in Münster, but was eventually released, without charge,^[2] to the Clemenshospital in Münster, and finally allowed to return home in November 1914.^[2] She then informed the British government of Hadley's death, on 26 November 1914.^[2]

Legacy

The British government received a communiqué from the German government, via the then-neutral American embassy in Berlin,^[12] declaring that Lieutenant Nicolay insisted that he had acted in self-defence, saying that Hadley had appeared to be reaching for a weapon,^[2] and did not respond to the warning "hands up or I will shoot".^[12] A court martial cleared him of all blame^[12] and he was promoted to Captain^[2] within a few months of the incident.^[12] Nonetheless, the British government continued to regard the case as one of murder.^[2][12] They issued a statement, published in The Times on 17 April 1915, which quoted the German communiqué, and protested at the acquittal of Nicolay.^[13] A statement by Hadley's cousin S. Eardley Wilmot was published on 20 April 1915, also doubting the German official account, and cited the case as an example of "Prussian brutality".^[15] Other English periodicals made comparisons to the Saverne Affair, in which an unarmed Alsatian shoemaker was severely wounded by a Prussian officer wielding a sabre, but the officer was ultimately acquitted of any offence at court martial.^[16]

In 1917, the German authorities revealed that some of Hadley's possessions had been sold by a court-appointed administrator and the proceeds used to pay the costs of his hospital treatment.^[2] Subsequently, more of his belongings were returned to his family, via the neutral authorities in The Hague.^[2]

See also

• HMS Amphion, a British scout cruiser, sunk by a German mine on 6 August 1914, with around 170 killed
• Private John Parr, reputedly the first British soldier killed in the First World War, on 21 August 1914

References