Ford, Guy Cecil

Guy Cecil Ford belonged to a class of men with whom the Theological Faculty has always been especially connected, and of whom it has always been especially proud - the men who after some years' experience of business life deliberately devote themselves to the ministry of the Church. He was born in 1877 and, after School days were over, joined the Staff of the North London Railway, leaving it in 1905 to become District Traffic Superintendent of the Soudan Government Railway. Five years later he had made up his mind to take Holy Orders, and joined the Theological Faculty of King's College. He was always modest and retiring, but yet shewed in the smallest actions life absolute unselfishness, fearlessness, and determination to serve his Master in his years of training, no less than during his time of active work. Those who watched him at Morning Chapel, from which he was seldom absent, could never see his expression vary an hair's breadth; but that impassive face gave an expression of steadfast devotion which will not be easily forgotten. In 1913 he was ordained by the Bishop of London and went to the parish of St. John the Baptist, Hoxton. His Vicar (the Rev. G. Twentyman) wrote of him- "Quiet, unassuming, and Christlike, Guy Cecil Ford, with a man's strength and a woman's gentleness, passing in and out of the homes of one of the largest and poorest parishes in the East end of London, has left a very deep and lasting impression upon the hearts and lives of those amongst whom he worked. They loved him and he loved them."

When the war broke out he felt that he must go to the service of his country in the field. Some years before (in 1896)he had joined the London Scottish as a private - the only way in which it is possible to join that famous regiment; two years later he was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant, and in 1903 he was promoted captain; but in 1903 he resigned his commission on going to the Soudan. There is little doubt that he could have obtained a commission again in his old regiment; but in simple deference to his Bishop's known wishes, he forebore, and enlisted as a private in the ambulance section. He left for the front in February, and was killed, whilst attending to the wounded, on the 13th of October. His Captain wrote to his brother- "Your brother did fine work - very quiet and unassuming - but always there when wanted. On September 25th, when we lost some 260 men, he was simply splendid in tending the wounded under a severe fire, and it was doing this very self same action which cost him his life on the 13th. He will be enormously missed in this Company and in the whole Battalion. Men who will go and dress the wounded under a heavy fire are not to be found everywhere, and there must be a feeling of pride in your family that he should have met his end whilst engaged on such merciful work." Truly Guy Cecil Ford has left us the high example of a pure and blameless life crowned by a hero's death. H.J.W. King's College Review, Dec. 1915

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