Lieutenant Prosper John Theodore Long Audy

Lieutenant (Army).

Long Service Medal. Served in the South African campaign. Enlisted with the 54th Kootenay Battalion. Was serving with the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, British Columbia Regiment, when killed.

Killed by a high explosive shell while in reserve billets. (Daily News,Nelson, BC, August 24, 1916)

Previous service- Cape Mounted Rifles / King's Colonials / 11th Regiment, Irish Fusiliers of Canada

PROSPER JOHN THEODORE AUDY was born in 1874, the eldest son of a French immigrant who had established himself in the West End of London as a tailor. On leaving school, Prosper joined his father as an assistant and took wanderlust struck and he took off on a whim for South Africa to become an ostrich-farmer. He soon tired of this and so joined the army as a private soldier with the Cape Mounted Rifles.

Then a real war broke out, the Second Boer War of 1899-1902. It taught the army the need for field-craft, the benefits of camouflage and of deeply entrenching defensive positions, and the efficacy of accurate and rapid shooting. Prosper gained a up amateur acting. But, a typical Audy, commission with the King's Colonials and was very popular with his men.

After the war he returned to England and tailoring, but in 1907 was off again, this time to British Columbia. After a brief spell as a real estate agent, he joined the Legion of Frontiersmen, a patriotic paramilitary organization for the defence of the Empire, and became Legion Captain of the newly formed Okanagan Squadron.