H. Hughes-Onslow

However, in 1919 he acknowledged the War had decimated a generation of players, and when he was asked if he was going to resurrect the A.F.A., he responded that he saw little point, as the top public schools were giving up soccer for rugby and that Oxford and Cambridge couldn’t find fixtures as many teams simply didn’t have have enough players to raise a team. Even Corinthians and Casuals struggled, and there can be little doubt that the War would finally take its toll on the Corinthians as within 20 years, agreement would be reached to merge the Corinthians with the Casuals, fellow travellers in amateur football.

Henry Douglas Hughes-Onslow was the youngest of six sons, born to Henry John Hughes Onslow, a wealthy land-owner. Henry was born six months after his father had died and like three of his brothers, was sent to Eton and then went up to the University of London. He became a lawyer, but is mostly remembered for his services to amateur football.

Henry left Southampton on August 1st, a week after the rest of the team, planning to meet up with the Corinthian team, but, like the rest of the squad, returned to take up arms. On returning, he would have been informed that his elder brother Arthur had died, the first casualty of the War for the Casuals or the Corinthians. Arthur, an accomplished horseman, had taken his own life, (although this wasn’t revealed until many years later), on the SS City of Edinburgh to France, accompanying horses he had requisitioned for the War. A career military man and a veteran of the Boer War, he was once shipwrecked off the coast of South Africa on a ship carrying horses to the War. He was traumatised and was deeply scarred by the harrowing and horrific loss of 400 horses he was accompanying. This experience stayed with him, and perhaps fearing a repetition of the African shipwreck, or acutely aware of what happened to horses in war, and unable to contemplate their fate, he took his own life. Two years later, another brother, Denzil would be counted among the fallen too.

Hughes-Onslow was awarded a CBE for his War work, and at the time of his death was Chief Taxing Master at the Law Courts. His death in 1932 made headlines across the country. At the time of his death, Hughes-Onslow was said to be of unsound mind brought on by chronic heart pain and stress from work. The coroner went on to say that Hughes-Onslow had purposely fallen from the third floor of his flat in Cavendish Square, London, falling through a fan light and landing on a roof below. Having lain there for several hours, and regained consciousness had returned to his flat, with the intention of throwing himself out again. Instead he ran a bath, cut himself with a razor, became unconscious and fell face down into the bath as it was filling with water. The coroner said, “A happy and kindly man was converted to a person who, for the time being, was not responsible for his actions.”

Henry Hughes Onslow was president of the AFA when he died. He was unmarried.