Francis Aylmer Maxwell was born on 7 Sep 1871, in Guildford, Surrey, the son of Surgeon Major Thomas Maxwell and Violet Sophia Maxwell (neé Lockhart) . He was commissioned into the Sussex Regiment in 1891. In 1894 he transferred to the Indian Staff Corps and took part in the Waziristan campaign of 1895 and the Chitral expedition, attached to the Guides. When Lieutenant-Colonel Battye was killed, Maxwell showed great bravery by retrieving his body. He joined the 18th Bengal Lancers in 1896 and took part in the Tirah campaign of 1897-8, during which he served as ADC to Sir William Lockhart. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the DSO, presented by the Queen at Windsor on 25 June 1898. He was appointed Adjutant of the 18th on 22 Aug 1899 but when the Boer War broke out in that year he was keen to go out and fight.
Lieutenant Maxwell applied to leave India and join the British forces in South Africa. He was attached to Roberts' Horse and was involved in an action at Sanna’s Post, near Korn Spruit on 31 Mar 1900. Q Battery, RHA had come under attack and become separated from their guns. There was a desperate effort to retrieve the guns and Maxwell was one of three officers, not part of Q Battery, that assisted in bringing them to safety. He went out under fire five times, saving two guns and three limbers. The other officers were Captain Humphreys and Lieutenant Stirling; together they made a last attempt to get one more gun in but had to abandon the task. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross along with Major Phipps-Hornby, Sgt Parker, Gunner Lodge and Driver Glasock. Maxwell was presented with his VC medal by The Duke of York (the future King George V) at Pietermaritzburg on 14 Aug 1901.
Maxwell was promoted to captain on 10 Jul 1901 and appointed ADC to Lord Kitchener. He went back to England with Kitchener after the Boer War and was promoted to brevet major on 22 Aug 1902, and substantial major in 1909. At the outbreak of WW1 he was Military Secretary to the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge. For nearly two years the war had gone on while he fretted with impatience to join the regiment or be employed in any capacity, but he could not be released from his job, and eventually returned to England with the Viceroy in May 1916. He was immediately given command of the 12th Middlesex Regiment which he soon made into one of the best fighting battalions in the army. There are many stories of his personal bravery during the fierce fighting during the battle of the Somme, especially Trônes Wood and Thiepval.
On 30 Aug 1916 he was appointed commanding officer of his regiment, the 18th King George’s Own Lancers, as it was then called, but he never lived to take up the appointment (his place was taken by Major V E Muspratt, 30th Lancers). By the end of 1916 he was given command of the 27th (Lowland) Brigade in the 9th Division, and gained yet more of a reputation in the battles round Arras in the spring of 1917, and later at Ypres. Eventually his luck ran out on 21 Sep 1917 after his brigade had made a successful attack on Menin Road Ridge in the Third Battle of Ypres. He was hit by a bullet from a German sniper. His brother Lt-Col Eustace Maxwell had been killed the previous year on 20 July. Brigadier Francis Aylmer Maxwell was buried at Ypres Reservoir Cemetery. There is also a memorial to him in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh. For many years afterwards,on the anniversary of his death, there appeared a brief notice on the front page of The Times, ‘Frank Maxwell, the bravest of the brave’.
He was married in 1906, to Charlotte Alice Hamilton, daughter of P H Osborne of New South Wales. They had two daughters. The portrait photo shows him wearing the scarlet tunic of the 18th Bengal Lancers c1903, The white front to his lancer tunic and white collar were the new colours recently adopted in place of the blue facings. He has a gold and blue pouch-belt; the Prince of Wales plumes were added in 1906. He has the rank of captain on his gold shoulder cords, although he had the rank of brevet major, and gold cap-lines around his neck. His medals include the VC, the DSO and medals for the Tirah campaign and the South Africa War, the Queen’s medal having six clasps. These medals were bought at auction in Nov 1998 by Lord Ashcroft’s Trust for 78,000 pounds and are in the Imperial War Museum.
