Captain, Royal Army Medical Corps.
Died 6th June 1918, age 25.
Buried at Marfaux British Cemetery.
Former student of medicine.
Keyser was born on June 9th 1892 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of Peter Wilson Atkin and Nelly Keyser Atkin. He later moved to Kersal, Manchester where his father was a magistrate for Salford. He was educated at Mostyn House School where he was Head Boy and served in the Cadet Corps where he was senior cadet. He later went to Jesus College, Cambridge where he excelled at rowing and Boxing, and then Manchester University studying Medicine. While at Manchester University he was a member of the Officer Training Corps and was noted as one of the best shots in the country winning the Lord Roberts Gold Medal. He was still studying at Manchester when World War One broke out and tried to enlist immediately in the Royal Army Medical Corps but was told to finish his study and qualify first. This he did in 1916 while still serving in the O.T.C and after a short residency as a house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and Sy.Mary’s Hospital gained his commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps and became Medical Officer attached to the South Staffordshire Regiment joining his battalion in France in 1917.
In September 1917 while aiding wounded men buried by a shell he was captured and spent some months as a prisoner of war at Holzminden and Freiburg. He was repatriated in February 1918 under a reciprocal agreement with Germany protecting medics and returned home. He did a short course in dentistry before returning to the front as Medical Officer to a battalion of the London Regiment in the spring of 1918. On 6th June 1918 while attending wounded at his dressing station at Nanteuil-La-Fosse he was seriously wounded and died later that day.
Of his death his head master said;-
“…he was utterly straight and conscientious, and this reputation remained with him throughout his life.”