ED 250 05 02

Reference code

ED 250 05 02

Title

Papers of Hugh George Edmund Durnford, 1886 - 1965

Level

Sub-series

Administrative / Biographical history

Second son of Richard and Beatrice Durnford, Hugh attended Fonthill Preparatory School and, from January 1900 to July 1905, Eton, where he was a King's Scholar. Like his brother he was in Pop, and he played in the Field XI, Mixed Wall and College Wall.

After taking a first class degree at King's College, Cambridge he went to Bombay as a Clerk with Wallace and Co. then the Bombay Company. He returned to England in 1915 and joined the Royal Field Artillery, and was captured in 1917 while serving in France. Sent to Holzminden, he was camp adjutant when 29 officers escaped by tunnelling their way out and later escaped himself from another camp, for which he received the MC. He later wrote a book on his experiences, The Tunnellers of Holzminden. After the war he worked briefly resettling officers before becoming Bursar of King's College, Cambridge, from which he retired in 1935 as a life fellow to live at Hartley Wespall House. He received a temporary commission in the RAF in the Second World War and among other duties gave lectures on techniques of escaping.

In 1919 he married Margaret Meiklejohn and had two daughters, Ann and Susan, of whom the former donated these papers.