Mr. P. H. Hepburn

Abstract

PATRICK HENRY HEPBURN was born in 1873 and educated at Charterhouse and at Amersham Hall School near Reading. He obtained a First Class Honours for the London LL.B. degree and followed his father's profession as a solicitor. He was a man of many interests. In 1902 he made a large collection of photographs of Norman churches round Caen to test a theory that the Gothic cross vault was a development of the Angevin dome. Before the War he was fond of boating and swimming, and bicycled all over England and Scotland and large parts of France and Belgium. Until recently he frequently bathed in the middle of winter in the Serpentine. He would take lonely walks over mountains and fells at night, and only two years ago was found in an exhausted condition and taken to a neighbouring inn. This pursuit led to the accident which caused his death. Walking by night in the Lake district, he fell into a river and apparently struck his head on a rock and was drowned. During the War his adventurous spirit led him to join the balloon section, of the Naval Air Service. An exciting incident occurred on one occasion. Going up at Richmond to a ‘blimp’ stationary balloon with a mechanic to make some repairs, they were caught by a line squall and the balloon was torn from its moorings and turned completely over. The occupants managed to hold on; the balloon righted itself and came down safely in Suffolk. He served in East Africa, where he was disappointed in not being able to climb Kilimanjaro, and afterwards in the Mediterranean. In Gibraltar he was a friend of the padre and used his library to learn Hebrew.