Lieutenant Phillips Burney Sterndale Gybbon Monypenny MC of the 1st Battalion, Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment, was born in Bengal on the 29th of April 1898 where he was baptised at Kursong on the 16th of June, the third son and one of six children of tea planter Herbert D'Arblay Gybbon Monypenny and Margaret Catherine Sterndale and grandson to the late Colonel Gybbon Monypenny JD DL of Maytham House.

Following a year at college he went to Bedford Modern School where he is recorded in the 1911 census and thence to Sandhurst in 1915.

In April 1916 he was gazetted to the 1st Royal West Kent Regiment and went to France the same summer.

At the beginning of 1918 he was transferred to the Italian Front but returned to France in April and was killed on the 28th/29th of June. 

He was twice wounded and was twice commended for a Military Cross before the third occasion and was then awarded the medal;

His citation reads “For devotion to duty and great zeal for the period February to September 1917. He has led several successful patrols and has distinguished him self on every occasion the battalion has been in action by his bold and skilful handling of his platoon”.

Following his death his Commanding Officer wrote that

“The battalion has taken part in operations which were very successful on the 28th and your nephew had led his company magnificently on this occasion as on others. The line had been well established when during the night the enemy opened very heavy fire on the captured positions and it was in the course of this barrage that your nephew was killed. Brave to a fault and unconscious of danger he was adored by his men and was the best of comrades to all in the battalion and would shortly have been promoted to Captain pending his transfer to the Indian Army. Although so young he gave promising of developing with age into an even more efficient leader of men and for his age was as good a leader as I have seen, or better”

Both the 28th and the 29th are given as his date of death. However given that he was killed during the night of these two dates, the confusion is understandable. 

Lieutenant Monypenny is interred in Thiennes British Cemetery, in France. The cemetery holds one hundred and fourteen identified Commonwealth casualties. He is remembered in Rolvenden Church on a brass plaque.

His probate records him as of 5/74 Kensington Gardens Square, Middlesex. His estate of £161-17-3d was administered to his father, who is described as a tea planter.