The Society has lost in the Somme advance a Fellow of great promise as a student of social and economic conditions and already a valued contributor to the Journal by the death of Sergeant-Major Frederic Keeling, of the 6th Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, who fell in a German trench at the head of his bombers on 18 August 1916.

Frederic Keeling, who was in his thirtieth year, was educated at Winchester (a fact which in his aversion to ‘the public school tradition’ he was sometimes inclined to conceal) and Trinity College, Cambridge. At Cambridge he was celebrated for many exploits vindicating the position that socialists were as much entitled as rowing men, amongst whom, nevertheless, he made converts, to an assured and respected position in university society. Virtually re-founder of the Cambridge University Fabian Society, he was president of the society, being succeeded by Rupert Brooke, at the second heyday of its celebrity and influence.

After leaving Cambridge he lived for some years in a workmen's dwelling in South London, subsequently becoming a manager of the Leeds labour exchange. During this period he produced his book on the regulation of child labour. A short time previous to the war he had returned to London, and was occupied, amongst other activities, as a frequent contributor to the New Statesman, editing the Blue Book Supplement. Very soon after the outbreak of war he enlisted in the ranks of Kitchener's first army.