The founder of the League was a Canadian Ypres veteran, Colonel Beckles Willson. By December 1920, King George V had agreed to become the League's patron. By 1925, there were three patrons: the King, Edward, Prince of Wales and Princess Beatrice. Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, was herself a mother bereaved by the fighting at Ypres, as her son, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, had been killed in action in 1914 during the First Battle of Ypres.