Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Rawling, Cecil Godfrey
RAWLING, CECIL GODFREY (1870–1917), soldier and explorer, was born at Stoke, Devonport, 16 February 1870, the second son of Samuel Bartlett Rawling, of Stoke, by his wife, Ada Bathe, daughter of S. Withers, of Purton, Wiltshire. He was educated at Clifton College and entered the army by way of the militia, being gazetted to the 13th regiment, Somerset Light Infantry, in 1891. Thenceforward most of his service was in India, where a love of sport took him into and beyond the Himalaya. In 1902 he crossed the Lanak-la Pass into Tibet as a preliminary reconnaissance for a more ambitious venture. In 1903, with Lieutenant A. J. G. Hargreaves, of his own regiment, he crossed the same pass and in nine months explored and mapped about 38,000 miles of hitherto unsurveyed country in Western Tibet and Rudok. In 1904 he was employed with the Tibet mission, and when the British commissioner, Sir Francis Younghusband, returned from Lhasa to Gyantse, he selected Rawling for the command of the very important exploration of the Upper Tsanpo (Brahmaputra) in 1904–1905. This was a very hazardous expedition, because the Tibetans were not known to be other than hostile and the return journey over the Himalaya to Simla had to be made in the middle of winter. During that journey Mount Everest was for the first time clearly recognized from the north, and it became Rawling's ambition to lead a party in from that side. His book, The Great Plateau (1905), describes his journeys in Tibet. In 1909 he went as surveyor to a scientific expedition to Dutch New Guinea, and when the leader was invalided he took command with notable success. He mapped a large area of unknown country and was the first European to meet the interesting Pygmies (Tapiro), who inhabit the lower mountains of that region. His experiences are recorded in The Land of the New Guinea Pygmies (1913). For his explorations the Royal Geographical Society awarded him the Murchison bequest (1909) and the Patrons' gold medal (1917). He returned to his regiment in 1911.
In 1914, on the outbreak of the European War, Major Rawling, as he was then, was ordered to raise and train a service battalion of his regiment, which he subsequently commanded in France. He survived the fighting at Hooge in July–August 1915, the long winter in the Ypres salient, the battle of the Somme, the taking of Fricourt, Mametz Wood, and the capture of Gueudecourt. He was promoted brigadier-general in July 1916. All the summer of 1917 he was constantly engaged, first in the fighting on the Hindenburg line, and then in the great battle east of Ypres. He was killed on 28 October by a stray shell outside his brigade head-quarters at Hooge.
Rawling was made C.I.E. in 1909, C.M.G. in 1916, and received the D.S.O. in 1917. He was unmarried. In character he was singularly boylike; as a traveller he was indefatigable, and as a soldier he was always hopeful and without fear. A tablet to his memory was erected in the south aisle of St. Mary Magdalen's church, Taunton.
[Geographical Journal, December, 1917; private information; personal knowledge.]