British Army Veterinary Corps
Walter Francis SHORE
Lieutenant-Colonel
Died 6 December 1916 · Aged 47
His story
Lieutenant-Colonel Walter Francis Shore MRCVS was born at St Boswells, Roxburghshire, on 4 October 1869. He trained at the New Veterinary College, Edinburgh, where he won the prize for practical chemistry, and qualified MRCVS in 1889.
Shore joined the Army Veterinary Department in July 1894 and spent much of his career in India. His work became closely associated with the Army Remount Depot at Saharanpur. As he rose through the service he undertook senior veterinary and remount duties and travelled overseas, including to Argentina and Australia, in connection with the purchase of horses.
He died in India on 6 December 1916 and was buried at Saharanpur. For many years the precise location of his grave was treated as uncertain in later memorial research. His grave was eventually rediscovered in the old European cemetery at Saharanpur and brought back within the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s care.
That recovery gives Shore’s biography an unusual afterlife: the story is not only that of a senior veterinary officer, but also of how a First World War grave could effectively disappear from view and then be identified again generations later.
Before the war
- Nationality
- British
- Date of Birth
- 4 October 1869
- Place of Birth
- St. Boswells, Roxburgh, Scotland
- Veterinary College and Date of Graduation
- New Edinburgh - July 1889
Military service
- Last Rank
- Lieutenant-Colonel
- Regiment/Service
- British Army Veterinary Corps
- Secondary Regiment
- Army Remount Department Ambala India
- First Theatre of War
- India
Medals and commemoration
- Name on RCVS Honour Board
- Yes
- Name In Officers who died in Great War
- Yes
- Medals and Awards
- Victory Medal; British War Medal
Death and burial
- Date of Death
- 6 December 1916
- Age at Death
- 47
- Place of Death
- India
- Cause of Death
- Disease
- Cemetery
- Saharanpur Cemetery
- Location
- Saharanpur, India
- Grave Reference
- H.1
- Commonwealth War Grave
- Yes
Sources and further reading
Cite this biography
Graham Hodgkins and Pete Matthews, “Walter Francis Shore”, Veterinary Virtual War Memorial, https://vetsremembered.org/people/walter_francis_shore/.
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