Patriot Mobbs raised his own army
EDGAR Mobbs might be a rugby name that is recognised and honoured to this day but as a schoolboy he failed to make the Bedford Modern First XV although his elder brothers both played.
Mobbs was a young sporting talent all right with cricket another love but left school at 16 without playing for the First XV after his final season had been ruined by a knee injury. He worked as a car salesman with the Pytchley Auto Car company where, a natural leader of men, he quickly became a director.
Edgar continued to play rugby, first with Olney and then for Northampton for whom he was captain from the 1907/08 season until 1913. He captained East Midlands throughout that period and his seven caps for England came in 1909 and 1910, and included captaining the side to an 11-3 victory against France in Paris in 1910.
When the war came he immediately volunteered (aged 32) but was too old for a commission. Mobbs therefore formed his own special corps mainly from old colleagues and opponents he had encountered during the previous decade of club rugby. Some 264 men (out of over 400 who volunteered) joined and, as the Sportsman’s Battalion, formed a large part of the 7th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment.
They took part in the Battles of Loos, Somme and Arras. Mobbs, below, was wounded three times, mentioned in despatches twice and awarded the Distinguished
Service Order in 1917. His return to his battalion after his third injury, and by now as colonel, coincided with the third Battle of Ypres, known as Passchendaele.
Mobbs was to die there. Finding that his men were in serious trouble pinned down by machine gunners, he defied his injuries and instigated a twopronged flanking movement.
He set off with another runner, taking some hand grenades, around the side of the machine gun post but was shot in the neck and fell into a shell hole just 30 yards short.
Even as he lay dying, he scribbled out the machine gun post’s map reference for HQ to eliminate it, asked for reinforcements, and finally added: “Am seriously wounded.”
His body was never recovered. His name is listed among all those of the missing on the Menin Gate in Ypres.
The Mobbs Memorial Match between the Barbarians and East Midlands became a fixture for many years.