Percy Edward Ricketts was born at Allahabad on 5 Mar 1868. His father was George Henry Mildmay Ricketts and his mother Charlotte Anne Gough.
He was commissioned into the Devonshire Regiment on 22 Aug 1888 but transferred to the Indian Army. He served in the 18th Bengal Lancers from 1890 to 1918, appointed Adjutant from 9 May 1896 to 21 Aug 1899. In 1906 the regiment was moved from Nowgong to Delhi. Up to October the previous year, the cavalry garrison in Delhi was only one squadron, but in October 1905 it was ordered to increase to a regiment. To house the extra men and horses, new lines had to be built. Captain Ricketts was sent there from Nowgong, with a working party, to carry out the building task. The regimental history has this anecdote about the building work:
‘On one occasion Ricketts was told that mixing a proportion of arsenic powder with the whitewash when doing the inside of the men’s huts was an excellent preventative of white ants, and he proceeded to act accordingly. After a few days it was reported that a number of coolies engaged were indisposed, and it was discovered that, instead of putting the arsenic into the whitewash with a tin and stirring with a stick as instructed, they were doing it with their hands, and then cooking their chupattis without washing their hands! In a few days he would have had hundreds of coolies die on him!’
He served with the regiment in France as a major for most of 1915 but in November he was transferred to the command of an infantry battalion in the 38th (Welsh) Division. He served there with distinction until he was severely wounded at Mametz Wood in July 1916. He was created a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) in 1914, and awarded the DSO on 1 Jan 1917. He was married in 1903 to Lilian Caroline Morant, daughter of Maj-Gen Horatio Harbord Morant. They had two children; Maj-Gen Abdy Henry Gough Ricketts (1905-1993) and George Richard Morant Ricketts (1909-1948)
The photo shows him in the dress uniform of the 18th KGO Lancers in charge of the Indian Orderlies sent to London in 1914. He died in 1940. Lieutenant-Colonel P E Ricketts produced a book, Flat Racing, written and edited by him and the Earl of Harwood (London 1940)
