Bonsey, E K

EDWIN KENNETH BONSEY

Remembered with honour Aire Communal Cemetery: Plot III, Row G, Grave 13.

He attested at Lincoln’s Inn, London, 3 February 1916 for Short Service (Duration of the War with the Colours and in the Army Reserve): a solicitor’s clerk aged 25, 5’9½” tall, next of kin his father of Hankow, China; Private 9266 6th Company, Inns of Court O.T.C., and appointed unpaid Lance-Corporal 7 October 1916.  He was posted to a Royal Artillery Officer Cadet School, St John’s Wood, London N.W. 26 October 1916, and discharged on appointment to a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery 18 February 1917, gazetted 27 February 1917, and joined 99th Siege Battery at Arras 8 April 1917.  He was entitled to the Victory and British War medals; was gassed 25 June 1918 and died of his wounds at 39 Stationery Hospital.

There is an article about and a Death announcement for Edwin in the West Herts and Watford Observer dated 13 July 1918.

Son of Reverend Arthur BONSEY of Hankow, and the late Marianne (nee FORD) BONSEY.

His parents married 10 November 1884 at the Cathedral of Holy Trinity, Shanghai, China.  Marianne died 9 October 1910 in Hankow aged 53; Arthur died 2 December 1942 in Oxford aged 84.

Edwin was born 10 October 1890 in Hankow, and educated at Bishop’s Stortford, Herts, College and at Oxford University.  Before the war he was an articled clerk with G O Jones of Liverpool.

He has two entries in the National Probate Calendar.

On the 1891 Census, he is proving elusive (probably still in China). On the 1901 Census, aged 10 he was a boarder in Bishop’s Stortford, with his mother and two siblings.  On the 1911 Census, an undergraduate at Oxford University aged 20, he was a visitor in Letchworth, Herts, with his brother.