Philip Neame

Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame VC, KBE, CB, DSO, KStJ (12 December 1888 – 28 April 1978) was a British Army officer who became Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was also a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces, and the winner of an Olympic Gold medal, making him the only person to win both.

Neame was born in Faversham and died in Selling, Kent. He was educated at Cheltenham College.

First World War

Neame graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Royal Engineers in July 1908. He was promoted lieutenant in August 1910, and saw service with the 15th Field Company, Royal Engineers, during the First World War. Early in the war at the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914, Neame experienced first hand in the trenches the inferiority of the official British issue hand-grenades to the German equivalent and set about creating an alternative. Royal Engineers started devising home-made hand grenades made from empty jam tins filled with rivets, hobnails and loose metal. The explosive was usually two small bits of gun-cotton with a detonator and the necessary bit of fuse projecting from the end of the jam tin. Under the leadership of Neame, Royal Engineer sappers were kept busy in the first winter of the war manufacturing as many as were needed.