The Best brothers

In this year’s Remembrance Service, the Head poignantly referred to the three Best brothers. Their names, commemorated in the antechapel, are noticed by all those who view the tablet. The listing of the three brothers, one after the other, always evokes emotions similar to those mentioned by the Head in his sermon, emotions felt by Old Breconians for the Old Breconians who are memorialized on the Roll of Honour. 

This what we know of the ‘Best brothers’.  

The family - four brothers and two sisters - lived with their parents at Penbryn, a house on the hill beyond The Struet. Penbryn had been built for their father, Charles Walter Best, who was a Civil Engineer.

Arthur Stephen Middleton Best (Day Boy 1897-1901) was the first of the three younger brothers to join Christ College, where their older brother was already a Day Boy. Charles Walter Maybery Best (Day Boy 1893-1900) had joined the school in 1893 and left in 1900 for Jesus College, Oxford. Stephen Wriothesley Best (Day Boy 1900-1906) and Frank Harrington Best (Day Boy 1904-1910) joined the school soon after Arthur.

Arthur seems to have been the most studious of the brothers. Described as quiet and serious, he left school at 16 and gained an engineering diploma at the Central Technical College in London and a BSc in Engineering at the University of London. In 1913 he was appointed as an assistant engineer in the Public Works Department of the Federated Malay States.

Stephen, described as a quiet, steady boy of ability, passed his Higher Certificate examinations before leaving school in 1906 and going to work as a clerk in the Estate Duty office in Edinburgh. In 1912 he began studying law at Edinburgh University and in January 1913 joined the Officers Training Corps.

Frank, the youngest brother, was a popular boy, described “as a universal favourite; wholly irresponsible but most charming with the gift of friendship”. He left school in 1910 and followed Arthur, to the Central Technical College for Engineering at the University of London.

All three brothers enlisted soon after war was declared: Arthur bought a passage home from Malaya to enlist and he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers; Stephen and Frank joined the ‘Brecknocks’, the Brecknockshire Battalion of the South Wales Borderers.

Arthur, Frank and Stephen would all be killed in action in the first part of 1917.  

In October 1915 Frank and Stephen had sailed for India with their Battalion. After six months in Aden, they were again stationed in India; when more men were needed to fill the ranks of 4th (Service) Battalion which had been decimated by fighting in Gallipoli, Frank and Stephen were chosen to lead a draft of 140 men. They arrived in Mesopotamia on 7th February 1917 and were soon in the thick of action. Lieutenant Frank Harrington Best, aged 22, was killed in action on 13th February 1917.

Arthur had volunteered for duty in the East and arrived in Mesopotamia in October 1916. He was wounded in December 1916 but recovered sufficiently to rejoin his unit, the 71st Field Company of the Royal Engineers. As his Company pushed towards Bagdad, Lieutenant Arthur Middleton Best, aged 30, was killed in action on 23rd February 1917. 

After the death of his younger brother, Stephen had been wounded in late March 1917. He rejoined the 4th (Service) Battalion on 21st April 1917. The 4th Battalion attacked Adhaim Village where Turkish forces were entrenched. Lieutenant Stephen Wriothesley Best, aged 28, was killed on the morning of 30th April 1917, while leading the capture of two Turkish gun batteries at Adhaim.  

Arthur is commemorated on the Amara War Cemetery, Iraq; Frank and Stephen are commemorated in the Basra Memorial, Iraq. The Memorial Tablet on which they are commemorated in the antechapel was designed by their older brother, Charles, who also designed the cross in Chapel Yard.

By an extraordinary twist of fate, the three brothers were unexpectedly reunited at Christmas in 1916, in what was then known as Bombay. The photograph of them taken whilst there allows us to see the three young Old Breconians who put duty before all, and whose names are remembered by Old Breconians all over the world.   

Frank Harrington Best

Arthur Stephen Middleton Best

Stephen Wriothesley Best