801 MT COY ASC
Captain Bethune Minet Patton (March 5, 1876 – April 10, 1939)
Bethune Minet “Peter” Patton had a public school education at Winchester and Wellington, his father was a Brigadier General, he followed in his father’s footsteps choosing the army for his career, according to the Gazette he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion of the Prince Albert’s (Somersetshire Light Infantry) on the 20th January 1894.
On a holiday to Switzerland he is believed to have learned to ice skate and he is credited with bringing ice hockey to Britain and helping to spread the sport to Europe. He was a founding member of the International Ice Hockey Federation in 1908 and was the inaugural president of the British Ice Hockey Association in 1914.
He was promoted to Lieutenant in May 1915 while serving with the Army Service Corps in France and in August 1915 promoted to Captain. Captain Patton was appointed the first commanding officer of the 801st Mechanical Transport Company when it was formed in September 1916 at Bulford barracks. He took the company out to Salonika in November and established them in camp on the Seres road supplying XVIth Corps in the Struma valley. He remained in command through the summer of 1917, and then on the 1st October he was admitted to Hospital with Malaria but returned for duty on the 13th. A month later on the 23rd of November Captain Patton was transferred to the base motor transport depot at Kalamaria and he handed over command to Captain Holland.
At the end of the war he was attached to the Serbian Army and was awarded the Serbian Order of the White Eagle. In July 1919 after returning home from the war, Patton continued to work with Serbians in historical records of motor units. Patton retired from the army in 1921 when he was granted the honorary rank of Major.
After the war he resumed in his position as president of the BIHA, a position he held until retiring in 1934. He died in 1939 aged 63 and is buried in a family plot in the church yard at Stoke St Mary in Somerset.