Henry Hadley (died 1914)
| Henry Hadley | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 1863 Cheltenham, England |
| Died | 5 August 1914 (aged 51) Gelsenkirchen, Germany |
| Cause of death | Gunshot wound |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | Cheltenham College |
| Occupation | Language teacher |
| Known for | Circumstances of death |
| Relatives | Erasmus Darwin (great-grandfather) |
Henry Hadley (June 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 World War I. He is sometimes described as the "first British casualty" of the Great War. He was a great-grandson of Erasmus Darwin.
Hadley was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. 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, at the Castle Hospital at Balaklava in the Crimean War, before retiring in 1861 with the honorary rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals. His mother, Alpha Clementia Dunn, was from Hobart, Tasmania. 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.
He was educated at Cheltenham College, attended the Royal Military Academy Woolwich, and served as a lieutenant in the 1st West India Regiment from 1887 to 1890. He later became a teacher of languages.
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. 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.
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