| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Edgar was born in Suffolk in 1856, he joined the Coldstream Guards and rose to the rank of sergeant. He took part in the campaign against the Khedive of Egypt in 1881/82 and then left the army. He married Alice in 1882 in Brentford and had eight children. He lived in the Woolwich, London and worked variously as a gas stoker and a “hay presser” at the dockyard.
He was in the reserves for the Guards and took part in the Anglo- Boer War in 1899-1900. He was awarded the South African Medal and the Belmont and Modder River clasps. He then left the army again.
After the death of his wife in 1905 he moved to Hull where he worked as a joiner. He married Emily Dearing, aged 44, in 1909. They had a son in 1910 and Edgar took on four stepchildren. The family lived at Annies Terrace, Clifton Street in Hull.
On 14 Sep 1914 Edgar re-enlisted at Hull at the age of 58. Given his military experience, he was assigned to the 7th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment and sent to Beverley to train new recruits. He was billeted with them at the Assembly Rooms, Norwood. On 21 Sep 1914 he took the men onto the Westwood but suffered a collapse and couldn’t be revived. The inquest agreed he had died of heart failure. According to the Beverley Recorder he was buried at Beverley, St Mary’s cemetery on 23 Sep 1914 and given full military honours:
“The cortege left the Westwood infirmary for the New Walk cemetery shortly after two o’clock. It was headed by a firing party from the depot of East Yorkshire Regiment, following which was the coffin, covered with the national flag, resting on a gun carriage drawn by six horses of the West Yorkshire Field Artillery now in camp on Westwood. Several cabs contained the relatives of the deceased and 200 or 300 of Kitchener’s recruits made up the procession, which was watched and followed by a large concourse of spectators…. At the conclusion (of the service) volleys were fired over the grave and the Last Post sounded.”
Edgar’s grave was reconstituted as an official war grave after the war. He is remembered on the Hengate Memorial and on the East Riding Memorial in the Beverley Minster.
Includes information taken from census, military records, newspapers |