Bert Gayler’s mother Annie died when he was very young, and he and his brother Ernest were brought up by his mother’s sister and their father. After leaving school, Bert became a barrister’s clerk and after further education at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) he became a court stenographer in 1911. It was at this time he took up serious cycling and he won many trophies with the Polytechnic Cycling Club. Gayler finished 30th in the road race at the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm and was a non-scoring member of the English team that clinched the silver medal.
In 1917 Gayler, a soldier with the British Army’s 25th County of London Cycle Battalion was sent to India as part of an expeditionary force to deal with a revolt amongst Mahsud tribesmen in Waziristan on what is now the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. He was killed by rifle fire during an ambush in a valley near Kotkai Bozi Khel. A memorial to him is to be seen at the Anglican Church in Jullundur.
Great Britain