The funeral of Henry Herbert Gayler, Waziristan, 1917

Photograph, North West Frontier Province, India, 1917.

Gayler died of wounds on 23 June 1917, received during a night attack by Mahsud fighters while on picquet duty outside a camp in Waziristan.

Gayler was educated at Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) and worked as a legal clerk before World War One (1914-1918). Gayler was an accomplished cyclist, one of four Polytechnic Cycling Club members who formed part of the twelve member team that represented England in the 1912 Olympics. He took part in the men's road race, single, where he came 30th, and was part of the men's road race team which came 2nd overall, winning the silver medal.

With the outbreak of war in 1914, like so many other young men, Gayler enlisted; unsurprisingly he joined the 25th (County of London) Battalion London Regiment (Cyclists). The 1/25th (County of London) Battalion London Regiment (Cyclists) served in India and the North West Frontier and participated in the 3rd Afghan War (1919).

Private Gayler's death is described in an account of the Waziristan campaign by fellow Cyclist, Henry Selvyn Paine, 'At night "B" company sent out a picquet of 30 men to a point about a mile from camp over very difficult ground. During the night the Mahsuds rushed them but were held off with bombs. It was on this picquet that H.H. Gayler, our crack cyclist was killed and four wounded.'

From an album of photographs and postcards compiled by Corporal Harold Vincent Yates, 25th (County of London) (Cyclists) Battalion, The London Regiment.