| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Ben was born in Beverley the 28 Dec 1897 and baptised at Beverley Minster the 3 Jul 1898, the son of Benjamin Lee Ramshaw and Jessie (nee Chapman), who married in 1891. Benjamin senior was a confectioner but by the 1901 census he was a pork butcher and beer house proprietor at 21 Wednesday Market, Beverley. The premises were called the Spotted Cow and customers had to pass through the shop to buy a drink. It closed in 1937 but the pork butcher’s shop is still open today. Ben attended St Mary’s Boys’ School from 1905-12 and Hull Technical College in 1912-13 and 1920-21. He became an engineering apprentice at the Wade and Cherry’s Works in Beverley and later qualified as a mechanical and hydraulic engineer. He was in the Church Lads’ Brigade from 1911-14 and was described as “bright and cheery” but “lacking in backbone” by its commander. He was also captain of the Beverley Town boys’ cricket team in 1914.
Ben enlisted on 6 Feb 1915 and joined the Royal Flying Corps as a fitter. He rose through the ranks and was a Flight Sergeant (Mechanical) by 1918. He served three years as an Engine Instructor at the Schools of Aeronautics at Bristol and Oxford but in 1918 he went to France and served there for a year. He left the RFC (now RAF) in Apr 1919. He was awarded the War and Victory medals. He returned to education and in 1921 he became a graduate of the Institution of Engineers.
Ben returned to Beverley after the war. In 1925 he married Gertrude Maude Pagan, born in 1903 in Hull, her father was a butcher and they lived at 60 Newland Avenue, Ben joined this business in 1939 he was described as a “butcher and shopkeeper”. At the time of his death on 4 Nov 1987 the couple were living at Allderidge Road, Hull. Ben was buried at the Queensgate Cemetery on 10 Nov 1987. Gertrude died in 1993.
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |