Maurice James Dease VC (28 September 1889 – 23 August 1914) was an Irish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was one of the first British officer battle casualties of the war and the first officer to posthumously receive the Victoria Cross.
Military career
Dease was born on 28 September 1889 in Gaulstown, Coole, County Westmeath, Ireland to Edmund Fitzlaurence Dease and Katherine Dease (née Murray). He was educated at Stonyhurst College and the Army Department of Wimbledon College before attending the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from where he graduated as a second lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers on 20 April 1910.
He was 24 years old, and a lieutenant in the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, commanded at the time by Lieutenant Colonel Norman McMahon, and was awarded the VC for his actions on 23 August 1914, at Mons, Belgium.
Nimy Bridge was being defended by a single company of the 4th Royal Fusiliers and a machine-gun section with Dease in command. The gun fire was intense, and the casualties very heavy, but the lieutenant went on firing in spite of his wounds, until he was hit for the fifth time and was carried away. Though two or three times badly wounded he continued to control the fire of his machine guns at Mons on 23rd Aug., until all his men were shot. He died of his wounds.
Dease was awarded the first Victoria Cross in the Great War and he received it on the first day of the first significant British encounter in that war.
When Lieutenant Dease had been mortally wounded, Private Sidney Godley offered to defend the Railway Bridge while the rest of the section retreated and was also awarded the VC. He was taken prisoner of war.
H. C. O'Neill wrote this account in The Royal Fusiliers in the Great War.
