WHILE a First World War victim was being remembered in Oxford, another tribute to him was taking place at his graveside in Belgium.

Former England rugby captain Ronald Poulton Palmer, who was born in Headington, was shot and killed by a sniper in the trenches on the Western Front in Ploegstreet in May 1915, aged 25.

More than 20 of his relatives, as well as staff from Balliol College and the Dragon School, both of which he attended, congregated around a cross in Holywell cemetery on the 100th anniversary of his death.

Meanwhile, another party, including former Lord Mayor of Oxford Ann Spokes Symonds, gathered at his graveside in Ploegstreet to honour his memory.

Mrs Spokes Symonds, of Davenant Road, North Oxford, tells me: “My husband Richard was Ronald Poulton Palmer’s nephew. Ronald was one of the greatest English rugby players of all time.

“A bonus for us was that when the bugles were sounded at the Menen gate in Ypres (as they are every evening at 8pm), a tribute was paid to Ronald on the anniversary of his death. It was read by the chairman of the Ypres branch of the Royal British Legion to a crowd of thousands.”

When the party arrived to place flowers on the grave, they discovered the Rugby Football Union and Harlequins RFC had already laid wreaths there.

The inscriptions on the grave read: “Lieutenant RW Poulton Palmer, Royal Berkshire Regiment, 5th May 1915” and “His was the joy which made people smile when they met him”.

The commemoration in Oxford was led by economist and broadcaster Peter Jay, of Woodstock, Ronald Poulton Palmer’s great nephew.

Mr Jay, a former British Ambassador to the United States, read words of his great-grandfather, Sir Edward Poulton, expressing the hope that the young men who died in the war would not be forgotten.

Ronald Poulton Palmer enjoyed a glittering rugby career before being called up to fight. He represented England 17 times, scoring eight tries, and captained his country to victory in the Five Nations tournament in 1914. In the last international match before the war, he set an England try-scoring record, crossing the line four times against France, a feat not equalled by an Englishman in the Five or Six Nations until 2011, by Chris Ashton against Italy.

His French opponents described him as the “greatest rugby player in the world”. He also scored five tries for Oxford University in the Varsity match against Cambridge in 1909, a feat that has never been surpassed.

Desmond Devitt, registrar at the Dragon School, which Mr Poulton Palmer joined in 1897, said: “He was the Jonny Wilkinson of his era in terms of fame.”

Mr Poulton Palmer’s parents, who lived in Banbury Road, Oxford, also lost two daughters, a grandson aged three, their daughter’s two brothers-in-law and a cousin during the war.