BRIGADIER GENERAL FREDERICK JAMES HEYWORTH
SCOTS GUARDS
9TH MAY 1916 AGE 53
BURIED: BRANDHOECK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
"Brigadier-General FJ Heyworth, Commanding 3rd Guards Brigade, killed by a sniper at long range. Otherwise a quiet day."
Guards Division War Diary 9 May 1916
At 7 am on 9 May, General Heyworth went up to the front line to inspect a new mine crater blown by the Germans during the night. He was killed outright.
His inscription is a complete puzzle. Djenan seems to be an Arabic name for both a person and a place. It was chosen by his wife, Violet, the widow of James Hatfield-Harter, who he had married in 1913. Frederick Heyworth served in the Sudan in the 1880s, at the start of his military career, perhaps the name became associated with him then.
Written in December 1914
1 June 2018
I am very grateful to John Snowdon, @snowspain, for pointing out to me that Djenan was a character in French author Pierre Loti's popular 1906 novel, 'Les Desenchantees', the disenchanted or disillusioned. The word means 'well-beloved'.