Geoffrey Harold Woolley

Who was Geoffrey Harold Woolley?

Geoffrey Harold Woolley VC OBE MC was the first Territorial Army officer to be awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.

Woolley was the son of a clergyman, Rev. George Herbert Woolley the curate of St Matthew’s, Upper Clapton, Hackney in London, and his wife Sarah Woolley. He had seven sisters and three brothers, including the famous archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley and George Cathcart Woolley, a colonial administrator and ethnographer. Woolley was educated at Parmiter's School, Bethnal Green, St. John's School, Leatherhead and Queen's College, Oxford. He seemed destined to follow his father into the Church until the outbreak of the First World War, when he obtained a commission in the Queen Victoria's Rifles, the 9th Battalion of the London Regiment of the British Army.

The Queen Victoria's Rifles were posted to the Ypres Salient. On 17 April 1915, the British Army captured Hill 60, a low rise to the south-east of Ypres. In the midst of fierce German efforts to retake the hill, Second Lieutenant Woolley's company were sent up on the afternoon of 20 April to take ammunition supplies to the defenders. The situation quickly deteriorated, with many men and all the other officers on the hill being killed. Woolley refused verbal and written orders to withdraw, saying he and his company would remain until properly relieved. They repelled numerous attacks through the night. When they were relieved the next morning, he returned with 14 men remaining from the 150-strong company. The citation for the Victoria Cross he was awarded for this action reads: