Lieutenant Colonel commanding 21st 21st Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (F.F.) (Daly's Horse). Died 29 April 1918. Aged 49. Born 21 October 1868. King Edward's Delhi Durbar Medal. Son of Rear Admiral and Mrs. J. G. J. Hanmer, of The Priory, Little Waldingfield, Suffolk; husband of Ethel Elizabeth Hanmer (nee Lovett), of V.V. Rhuallt, St. Asaph, married in the October to December Quarter 1901 in the Oswestry Registration District, Shropshire. Served on Punjab Frontier, 1901-2. Awarded the Distinguished Service order (D.S.O.)[London Gazette 7 February 1918] and twice Mentioned in Despatches. No known grave. Commemorated on Basra Memorial, Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Panel 44.

Captain, 34th Sikh Pioneers. Died 2 November 1914. Aged 29. Mentioned in Despatches (MiD). Buried in Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner, Cuinchy. Pas de Calais, France. Plot VIII. Row J. Grave 7.

Extract from The Bond of Sacrifice, Volume 1, page 242-243:

CAPTAIN JAMES FERGUS MACKAIN, 34th SIKH PIONEERS, was born on the 28th October, 1885, the elder son of the Rev. W. James Mackain. of Ardnamurchan, Vicar of Poslingford, Suffolk, and formerly Rector of Par ham, Sussex. He had many distinguished relatives of former generations in the Royal Navy, being the eldest grandson of the late William Fergus Mackain, of the Admiralty, who was at one time Deputy Store Officer of His Majesty's Victualling Yard, Deptford ; and a great-grandson of James Mackain, R.N., formerly Naval Storekeeper of His Majesty's Dockyards of Pembroke, Sheerness, and Woolwich, who, as a midshipman, was present at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, and—a fact of interest at this time—was at the forcing of the Dardanelles in 1807, under Admiral Sir J. J. Duckworth. A great- great- grandfather was Commander William Dobbin, R.N., who commanded His Majesty's Cutter " Diligence " at Milford Haven at the time of the French invasion of 1797, and was subsequently presented with a sword of honour by the Commissioners of His Majesty's Customs.
Captain Mackain was educated at Warden House School, Upper Deal, at Clifton College, and the R.M.C., Sandhurst, into which he passed thirtieth out of one hundred and sixty-seven successful candidates. He was posted to the Indian Army in 1904, being attached for a year to the Gordon Highlanders, and joining the 34th Sikh Pioneers in 1905. During the great earthquake in the Punjab in that year he commanded a relief column from Lahore to Kulu, and did excellent work there and in the Kangra Valley. He served in the Mohmand Expedition of 1908, receiving the medal and clasp. In 1910 he was seconded from his regiment, and served for three years as Second in Command of the 31st Signal Company of the Queen's Own Sappers anti liners. Ile became a Captain in 1913.
On the outbreak of the war with Germany he was on leave and joined his regiment in Egypt, proceeding with it to Northern France. Ile fell in action at Festubert, France, on the 24th November, 1914, while gallantly defending his trench against a determined and powerful assault by the enemy, who had sapped to within five yards and were throwing bombs and hand grenades. When Captain Mackain saw that some of them had finally succeeded in entering the extreme portion of the trench he heroically led some of his men in a charge against them, although previously wounded in the face from a splinter of a bomb. While shooting down their grenadiers with his revolver from a traverse of the trench he was himself finally shot in the forehead at close range, and died almost immediately. His name appeared in Sir John French's Despatch of the 14th January " for gallant and distinguished service in the field." The Rev. W. J. Mackain received numerous sympathetic letters on his son's death from all quarters ; among others from a former Head Master of Clifton College, the Archbishop of York, and the C.O. of his son's regiment.
A brother officer wrote : " He died, as he lived, a gallant and fearless Christian gentleman. He was shot through the head in a very gallant attempt to stem an attack in great force through breaches blown in our trenches. Your son went gallantly forward through a shower of hand grenades, and either shot or attempted to shoot the grenadiers. He was such a fine stamp of Christian soldier, and we looked on him as one likely to go a very long way."
The Macdonald Society, at their annual meeting in Glasgow on the 29th March, 1915, passed a resolution that the deep loss sustained by Captain Mackain's death be recorded in the Society's minutes. The Church of England Men's Society and the Cavendish Association passed similar resolutions of sympathy.
Captain Mackain, who was known throughout Northern India as a keen Churchman and one of the mainstays of the Church of England Men's Society, was a member of the Cavendish Club, Piccadilly, and of the Scottish Pipers' Society. His recreations were tennis, hockey, and shooting. He was unmarried.
In the Grosvenor Chapel, where Captain Mackain used to worship when residing in London, a handsome memorial has been erected to his memory by his parents.

1939-1945