Trained as a railway engineer by the GWR in his home town Swindon, he was working for the Great Indian Peninsula Railway at Jhansi when war broke out. He returned to England and enlisted on 4th December 1914. Until April 1916 he trained machine gunners with the 106 Machine Gun Corps. He went to France on 26th April 1916 and was severely wounded at Richebourg St Vaast on May 17th. He was visited by his younger brother, who was on his way home on leave, who reported that his leg had been amputated but he was in good spirits. He suffered a secondary haemorrhage and died on a hospital barge at Calais on the 25th, less than a month after going to France. He is buried in Calais. He was known as ‘Mint’ because, as a teenager, he had tipped the 1906 Cesarewitch winner Mintagon.

mike morris