Regiment: R.N.V.R..
Died: 21 November 1940 aged 37 in . Killed in Action with the Fleet Air Arm.
Cemetery: St. Merryn Churchyard Grave 1.
Son of Henry Bevington Legge and Edith Blythne Legge, 59 Carlisle Mansions, Carlisle Pl., SW1.
Mod. V. School Prefect. Head of House. Cricket XI, 1921, 22 (Captain).
Brasenose College Oxford. B.A., 1926. Played for Oxford at Cricket, 1925, 26 (Captain). Kent County C.C. Captain, 1928-30. M.C.C. Team, South Africa, 1926. New Zealand, 1929.
In his first year as Captain, when he was the youngest Captain in first class cricket, Kent were second in the County Championship.
Director of H. B. Legge & Sons, Paper Agents (Cannon St.).
Husband of Rosemary Katharine Legge, of Cranbrook, Kent.
H.M.S. Vulture. Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve
The following personal tribute appeared in The Times:
May I be allowed to add a few words to your notice of Geoffrey Legge? There is little need to say more about his cricket (which owed much to Frank Woolley) except that he went to South Africa with Stanyforth's M.C.C. XI in 1927-28 and to New Zealand and Australia with the M.C.C. XI under Harold Gilligan in 1929-30, and that on that tour he made a brilliant 196 in the Test Match at Auckland. While he was at Brasenose he was a keen motorist. He was indeed selected to represent Oxford against Cambridge in the motor races and was in consequence almost prevented owing to an accident from leading Oxford against Cambridge at Lord's in 1926. When he abandoned the cricket fields for business, Legge became an ardent airman, bought his own aeroplane, secured his own aerodrome, and made many business flights over Europe. The knowledge of Europe which he acquired from the air and his own personal experience he placed at the disposal of the Government at the time of the crisis in 1938, and in 1939 he immediately joined the Fleet Air Arm. Six days before his death he was promoted Lieutenant-Commander. In 1939 he married Rosemary, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James J. Frost—the happiest event of a happy life.
But his friends will remember him first and foremost not for his cricket or for his airmanship but for his personality. Though probably not technically good-looking, there was something about his presence which arrested attention—slim, debonair, invariably neat, and with a merry twinkle in his eye, he lent grace to any society in which he found himself. He was of equable temperament, but always knew his own mind and had the strength of character to act upon his own judgment. Quiet and undemonstrative, he never revealed so much of his inner self but that you wanted to know more. His silences were more companionable than the loquaciousness of most other men. He never wore his heart on his sleeve. He did not make friends easily or lightly, but I doubt whether he ever lost a friend once he had made one. Punctilious in keeping all his engagements, loyalty was the keynote of his character. After he had served some months with the Fleet Air Arm he declared: "The Navy are 100 per cent fine men." The Navy on their part must have welcomed Geoffrey to their fellowship as a recruit who would uphold the highest traditions of their Service. But his loss will be most sorely felt by those who knew him longest.
(Malvernian, Dec 1940).