R.C. Maples
Reginald Clegg Maples: (Barrister and Forward)
Maples trained as a barrister and for a short time, immigrated to Canada around 1911. He He served in the Canadian Forces on the Western Front, won the M.C., was mentioned in dispatches, and retired with the rank of Captain. He is a Freeman of the Cutlers' Company.
Born in Sheffield, in 1887, to Charles Maples, a pharmaceutical commercial traveller and Arsenath Harrop. He came from an athletic family and his sister Winifred, won the Ladies Badminton Championship in Canada.
He studied at King Edward VII, Sheffield where he was the champion athlete for three year running, and won several scholarships to study at Queen’s College, Oxford, where he won his blue for football in his first year.
He played cricket, golf, tennis, to a high level and aside from Corinthian and Casuals, played football for: Sheffield F.C., Sheffield Grasshoppers, Sheffield Club, Oxford University, Northern Amateurs. He was selected as one of the reserves to play for England in an Amateur International against Germany in 1909 and then played against France in March 1910 (where he scored 2 goals in a 20-0 win), and again in 1911 in Paris where England won 3-1. He was approached by Sheffield Wednesday, a professional team but after initially agreeing, withdrew before playing.
He toured with Corinthians in 1911 Canada, Bohemia in 1912, 1913 to Brazil, and was in the 1914 party. He made 30 appearances for Corinthian, but all before the War.
On leaving university he joined the staff of Winchester College for a while, but at some point left for Canada. At university, his best friend and strike partner in the football team was Harold Robert Lawrence Henry and he was best man at Henry’s wedding. Henry was from Winnipeg, Canada and it was there that Maples left for where he practiced as a barrister. His sister and mother also lived in Canada for a while.
He was with Corinthians in 1914 and rushed back to Canada and signed up for the 52nd Manitoba Regiment. He was mentioned in despatches and won the Military Cross for gallantry.
“For conspicuous gallantry and initiative during the advance to the canal at Valenciennes , on 22nd / 23rd October, 1918. He took a personal charge of the transport, and by untiring efforts, he kept pace with the advance, thus permitting rapid progress and the complete outflanking of the enemy. Mined roads and heavy shelling, casualties to men and animals, were overcome by his judgment and energy.”
In 1918, Maples married Olive Hilda Nagy, a woman he had probably met before the War, a Canadian with Hungarian ancestry, who travelled to England for the marriage. Olive was presented to the King in 1947 and received an M.B.E for her War work with the Women’s Voluntary Service in Sheffield. He remained married to Olive for the rest of his life.
At the end of the Great War he joined Sheffield steel firm J. Beardshaw and Son Ltd becoming a board member in 1920. Reginald Clegg Maples died in Chelmsford in 1967, aged 80.