Gerald Caldwell Siordet was an unlikely soldier. Tall and very thin, he was an aspiring artist, critic, and poet. Friends with John Singer Sargent, Glyn Philpot, and William Morris’s wife, Jane, Siordet also tutored the young Aldous Huxley, preparing him for entry to Oxford. And yet in September of 1914, Siordet volunteered as a soldier, leaving behind his artistic ambitions and his work as an ivories cataloguer at the Victoria & Albert Museum. (http://behindtheirlines.blogspot.nl/2017/02/an-unlikely-soldier.html) At the outbreak of war, Siordet volunteered for the Army and joined as a private. Later he was promoted as an officer "on the field" in France and received the Military Cross. He was killed in Mesopotamia in February 1917. (http://www.leicestergalleries.com/19th-20th-century-paintings/d/glyn-warren-philpot/20744)