A verdict of accidental death was returned by a Coroner’s jury at Tidworth on Thursday in the case of Second-Lieutenant Samuel Ferris, of the Cavalry Reserve. The officer was found in his room at the Barracks shot through the head, and died within the hour. Shortly before the occurrence he was in a cheerful mood, had been on parade, breakfasted, and was changing his wet clothes. Captain and Adjutant Barclay stated that he found a yard and a half from Lieutenant Ferris’s feet an automatic pistol of the latest pattern. It might, he said, easily be discharged by a person who did not intend to fire it, and who had no reason to know it was loaded. Captain Barclay expressed his opinion that the discharge of the pistol was accidental. Lieutenant Ferris, who had been to the front and was much improved in health since his return, was a son of Dr John Spencer Ferris, or Warwick Dene, Ealing.
[Wiltshire Telegraph: Saturday 10th April 1915]
Samuel Bernard Clutton Ferris was born on 1st December 1890, and was the oldest of three children to John and Mary Ferris. John was a physician and surgeon from Wiltshire, but the family were born and raised near his practice in Uxbridge, Middlesex.
Mary died in 1910, by which time Samuel had taken up studies at Cambridge. Following in his father’s line of work, he was reading natural science at the esteemed university. Outside of term time, John – now retired – Samuel, and younger sister Stella were living in an 11-roomed property at 2 Warwick Dene, Ealing, and were being supported by three servants – housemaid Mary Fisher, under housemaid Elizabeth Price, and cook Emma Lovejoy.
When war broke out, Samuel took up a commission in the 10th (Prince of Wales’s Own Royal) Hussars. Sent to France early in the conflict, it is likely that he saw action during the First Battle of Ypres, possibly at Langemarck or Gheluvelt.
Whether Second Lieutenant Ferris was wounded in France, it is unclear. He may, however, have fallen physically or mentally ill, and the wording of the newspaper report suggests this might have been the case. Either way, his condition was grave enough for him to be sent back to Britain for treatment or recuperation.
Back on home soil, Samuel was based at Tidworth, on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire. It was here, on the 6th April 1915, that the accident that ended his life occurred. He was 24 years of age.
The body of Samuel Bernard Clutton Ferris was laid to rest in the graveyard of St Leonard’s Church in Keevil, Wiltshire. This is where Samuel’s father had been baptised, and was his paternal grandparents’ parish church. The above newspaper report noted that the funeral was well attended, but that Samuel’s father was “very ill and unable to be present.” [Wiltshire Telegraph: Saturday 10th April 1915] His sister – now Mrs Walter Spencer – attended, but his brother, John, was absent, although it is likely that he was serving his country at the time.
Samuel’s probate records note that he left an estate worth £1243 1s (around £166,000 in today’s money). Interestingly, this did not go to a family member (his father did not pass away until the spring of 1921). Instead, the beneficiary was recorded as Mr Warner Herbert Taylor Ottley. A civil servant, it is likely that he and Samuel were friends.
