reputation as a brilliant soldier suffered nothing. He was created C.B. in 1900. After the relief of Kimberley by Major-General (afterwards Earl) French, Colonel Kekewich returned to the command of his battalion which formed part of the column under Lord Methuen. It was not until December 1901 that Kekewich was given command of a column of the South Africa field force. He took a prominent part in the actions of Moedville (30 September 1901) and Rooival (11 April 1902), and as a reward for his services throughout the campaign was made major-general (1902). He died 5 November 1914 at Whimple, near Exeter. He never married.
[The Standard and Diggers' News, 10 November 1899; The Times, 6 November 1914; Lieut.-Colonel W. A. J. O'Meara, Kekewich in Kimberley, 1926; private information.]
KELLY, FREDERICK SEPTIMUS (1881–1916), musician and oarsman, was born at Sydney, New South Wales, 29 May 1881, the seventh child and fourth son of Thomas Hussey Kelly, of Glenyarrah, Sydney, by his wife, Mary Dick. He was educated at Eton (1893–1899) and at Balliol College, Oxford (1900–1903), where he was Lewis Nettleship musical scholar. There can have been few in whom gymnastikē and mousikē were more happily combined, and his excellence in either field would have made him a remarkable man. Kelly was one of the most promising English musicians of his day, a fine oar, and one of the greatest scullers of all time. He stroked the Eton eight in 1899, rowed for Oxford in 1903, won the Grand Challenge cup at Henley in 1903, 1904, 1905, the Stewards' cup in 1906, and rowed in the veteran English crew which won the Olympic eights in 1908. His sculling was beautiful to see: unspoilt by professional coaching, he sculled as he rowed, and his natural sense of poise and rhythm made his boat a live thing under him, perfectly controlled. His swing was not very long, but the length of his stroke in the water was considerable, the blades being instantly and evenly covered and driven through with a steady, equal pressure and a simultaneous finish, so that no ounce of his strength was wasted. Few scullers have ever equalled the precision of his blade work and the perfect counterpoise of the two sides of his body. His style was so easy that when going his fastest at the hardest moment of a race it looked as if he were paddling. He first won the Diamond sculls at Henley in 1902 (in 8 minutes 59 seconds) when he entered as a novice, the final heat being probably the finest, though it was not the fastest, race of his life. Both by his style and his determination he recalled the classic win of T. C. Edwards-Moss in 1878. He won again in 1903 (in 8 minutes 41 seconds), was beaten in 1904 when he was not properly trained, and won in 1905, lowering the record by 13 seconds to 8 minutes 10 seconds, a time which has never since been beaten. In 1903 he won the Wingfield sculls with great ease.
As a child Kelly had a remarkable talent for the pianoforte, but his real musical education did not begin until he left Balliol in 1903, when he settled down in earnest to a prolonged course of study (1903–1908) in Frankfort-on-Main under Professors Knorr and Engesser; and until 1914 his life was devoted to realizing his dual ambition—‘to be a great player and a great composer’. As in sculling, so in music, his genius lay in the direction of infinite painstaking, and he set himself a most exacting standard of musical discipline. In 1912 he gave a series of concerts in London, in which he played some of the great test pieces. No one could question the soundness of his craft or the brilliance with which he engaged. A strong masculine touch, clear articulation, abundant power of attack, an even-handed facility, and thoroughly safe command—these were some of the results, wholly admirable, of his intensive cultivation of ‘technique’. But there was a certain immaturity; traces of the workshop were still evident in his performance. Even so, the concerts were a fine achievement and gave great promise for the future.
Although musical ideas came to him only fitfully, Kelly left a wide range of compositions, two volumes of songs, several pieces for the pianoforte, a serenade for the flute and string orchestra (1911), a violin sonata (1915), and two organ preludes which were masterpieces of small genre. All his work had individuality; he owed little to others except perhaps to Chopin, and here and there to Schubert. The predominant note was lyrical, and he had a great sense of orchestration and colour.
At the outbreak of the European War in 1914 Kelly joined the Royal Naval division, and was in the Hood battalion with Rupert Brooke [q.v.] and Charles Lister. He served throughout the Gallipoli campaign, and won the distinguished service cross for his conspicuous gallantry. In
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