Wednesday 3rd March 1915

Early in March (though the exact date is unknown) 2Lt. Maurice Odell Tribe joined 10^th Battalion, and would serve alongside Gilbert Tunstill. Maurice Odell Tribe was born 4^th June 1893; he was the youngest of five children, and only son, of Rev. Odell Newton Tribe and Annie Newton Beane. Maurice’s two eldest sisters, Dorothy and Annie, had been born in Ware, Herts, while Naomi, Margaret and Maurice had been born after the family moved to Tottenham, where they were living at 36 Lordships Lane. Maurice attended boarding school at Radley College from 1907 to 1911. At school he was a talented scholar but also a bundle of energy and often in trouble. A friend later described him as being “as explosive as any atom God ever made … a big-hearted lad with five loaves of science and two fishes of mischief’. He did however show a great aptitude for chemistry and went on to study at St John’s College, Oxford, from where he graduated in 1914.

On the outbreak of war Tribe sought a commission in the Army but was rejected, apparently on account of his height (although at five feet six and a half inches he was well within the ‘normal’ requirements). Instead he volunteered to serve as a stretcher-bearer with 5^th London Field Ambulance (RAMC), signing up at Hatfield on 2^nd September 1914.  However, he was subsequently granted a commission with the Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment, with effect from 25^th January 1915.