For days the body of Lieutenant Maurice Darby, the last male heir of Shropshire's famous Darby dynasty, lay on the battlefield. It was destined, it seemed, to decay and disappear like so many others during the Great War.

But, very unusually, he did not join those who lie forever in a foreign field. His maternal uncle pulled some strings and got permission to hunt for the body in front of the German lines and bring it home to Shropshire.

"The Coalbrookdale Company was led by Alfred Darby, and his son Maurice was killed at Neuve Chapelle in 1915," Maurice was 20 when he was killed on March 11, shot through the heart while serving in the Grenadier Guards.

"His maternal uncle, General Sir George Arthur, was private secretary to Lord Kitchener who grudgingly gave him permission to recover the body, and he went to the battlefield and brought it back to Shropshire."

The grave is at Little Ness, and includes the inscription "in proud and loving memory of Maurice Darby, whose body having lain for four days on the battlefield of Neuve Chapelle was after a long night search in front of the enemy's lines, recovered and brought home by his uncle George Arthur to be laid at rest on this spot."

R Urquhart