THE family of a former England rugby captain gathered yesterday to mark 100 years since he died in the trenches during the First World War.

Ronald Poulton Palmer, born in Headington, represented his country 17 times, scoring eight tries, before he was called up to fight.

He was killed by a sniper as he stood at night on top of a dug-out on the Western Front in Ploegstreet, Belgium, aged 25 on May 5, 1915.

More than 20 descendants, as well as staff from the Dragon School and Balliol College, where he was educated, congregated around a cross for Mr Poulton Palmer in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford.

The family, which lived in Banbury Road, was hit hard during the First World War as Mr Poulton Palmer’s parents also lost two daughters, a grandson aged three, their daughter’s two brothers-in-law and a cousin.

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Economist and broadcaster Peter Jay led the service for his great-uncle. Mr Jay, the former British ambassador to the US, said: “We have fulfilled our commitment that ‘We Will Remember Him’.

"The family was blasted between 1914 and 1918 and now there are 273 descendants. It was a time of disaster and tragedy but the family has now been reconstructed and that’s why it is especially important we are here today.”

The 78-year-old said the words of his great-grandfather Sir Edward Poulton – Mr Poulton Palmer’s father – were particularly poignant and relevant, and he read them out in the crowded corner of the cemetery at St Cross Church.

He said: “In this generation, the war has taken nigh all of our best, and future ages will know nothing of what they were and promised to be, unless we give them the chance.

“It is a trust laid upon us alone – no others can do the work – to preserve the record of the young men of our day, who if we did not see to it will be forgotten.”

A year before he was killed he captained an unbeaten England in the Five Nations.

In the last international match before the war he set a try-scoring record, crossing the line four times against France – leading the French to call him “the greatest rugby player in the world”.

The record was only equalled in 2011 by Chris Ashton against Italy.

His five tries against Cambridge in the Varsity match of 1909 remains unbeaten to this day.

Mr Poulton Palmer, joined the Dragon School in 1897, then Rugby and Balliol.

Dragon School registrar Desmond Devitt said: “He was the Jonny Wilkinson of his era in terms of fame.

“He was the best all-round sportsman the Dragon School has ever produced.”