Captain G.F. Wolff

West Herts and Watford Observer 27th April 1918

Captain G.F. Wolff, Royal Welsh Fusiliers (temporary major), attached Machine Gun Corps, who fell on March 21st, aged 29, was the fifth and youngest son of Mrs. E. Wolff, Hampstead, N.W., and the late Rudolf Wolff, and the younger brother of Mr. R.A. Wolff of Melrose, Cassio-road, Watford. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School, and subsequently abroad. He played football for the Old Merchant Taylors’ first fifteen in 1909. Three years later he went to Buenos Aires, and traveled continuously up and down the East and West Coasts of South America. He was one of the few Englishmen who returned from the West Coast by the Trans-Andine Railway, and, being snowed up at Mendoza, walked down the mountains to a level where the railway was running again, and thus returned to Buenos Aires after an adventurous journey. Immediately at the outbreak of war he, with the majority of the British Colony, registered his name with the British Consul offering his services. He threw up his appointment, came home, and obtained his commission in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He went to the front in August, 1915, and at the end of 1916 he joined the Machine Gun Corps. In December, 1917, he was mentioned in dispatches. Lieut.-Colonel J.D. Deane-Drummond says: “Captain Wolff was killed near a small village called Morchie, by a shell. He was one of the best and bravest officers I had, and had been recommended for promotion to the rank of major. As a friend and also a brave and splendid officer, he is a heavy loss to the battalion and the British Army. But like every true Englishman, he died the death he would have chosen, and one’s life is a small thing; yet the only thing one can give for one’s King and country. His company did splendid work, and is consequence was badly cut up.”