Lieutenant Costin was the son of the late John Duffus Costin, Esq., New South Wales, Australia, and of Mrs. Adele Hobson, and stepson of Walter Hobson, Tan y Bryn, Bangor. He joined the 1st Battalion of The Prince of Wales’s Own West Yorkshire Regiment. In the Battle of Ypres-Armentieres on the 20th October, 1914, he was wounded in action, and died four days later in hospital at Boulogne, aged 25. He was buried with military honours in the cemetery there. The Chaplain to the Forces, who saw him when he was brought in wounded, wrote: “I had many opportunities for forming an estimate of his character for I knew him well, and I know he was a man of highest qualities and ideals, brave and honourable, respected by all who knew him, and loved by his brother officers, and by the men under his command. His loss is a loss to the whole army, and the cutting off of a keen soldier who had promise of a brilliant career.”
“I shall go to him,
But he shall not return to me,”