Background
On 1 June 1916 he married Pamela Cynthia Maude, the daughter of actors Cyril Maude and Winifred Emery.
On 1 June 1916 he married Pamela Cynthia Maude, the daughter of actors Cyril Maude and Winifred Emery.
Eton College; Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Royal Military College, Sandhurst.
He was at school at Summer Fields School, Oxford and then at Eton, leaving in 1907. Congreve was 25 years old, and a Major in The Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort"s Own), British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Venture capital. During the period 6 July to 20 July 1916 at Longueval, France, Major Congreve constantly inspired those round him by numerous acts of gallantry. As Brigade Major he not only conducted battalions up to their positions but when the Brigade headquarters was heavily shelled he went out with the medical officer to remove the wounded to places of safety, although he himself was suffering from gas and other shell effects.
He went out again on a subsequent occasion tending the wounded under heavy shell fire.
Finally, on returning to the front line to ascertain the position after an unsuccessful attack, he was shot by a sniper and died instantly. His widow bore a posthumous daughter, Mary Gloria Congreve, born 21 March 1917.
Pamela Congreve later remarried, to Brigadier the Honorary William Fraser, in 1919.
William Congreve"s grave is at Corbie Communal Cemetery Extension, France, 9 miles east of Amiens, Plot I, Row F, Grave 35.
There is also a memorial to him in the form of a plaque in Corbie church, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. Lutyens designed another plaque to his memory which is at Street John the Baptist"s church in Stowe-by-Chartley, Staffordshire. Congreve"s service in the First World War is also recalled, along with that of his father, in a Roll of Honour book in Street Michael"s Church, West Felton, Shropshire, the latter village having been his childhood home when his father lived at West Felton Grange from 1903 to 1924.
His Venture capital is recorded in the same village on the community building called the Haslehurst Institute, land for building which had been given by his father.