Name
Percival Henry Edmondson (MC)
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
28/06/1918
30
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Royal Horse Artillery (Nottinghamshire)
Attached 309th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Military Cross
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
QUERRIEU BRITISH CEMETERY
C.43 (Buried directly beside the Great Cross)
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Weston Memorial Name inscribed on the Memorial Bells, Memorial Community Church, Barking Road, London E13
Pre War
Born in Stoke Newington, London in 1888, son of James and Isabel Edmonson of Woodberry Lake, Green Lanes, Finsbury Park, London and Fairclough Hall, Weston, Herts. 1911 Census: Living at 246 Green Lanes, Finsbury Park and working as an Architect (building).
Wartime Service
2 September 1916 promoted to 2nd Lt Royal Horse Artillery. 5 August 1917, joined 309 Battery HAC in France on active service. 17 December 1917, awarded the Military Cross for rescuing, during a shelling, members of the Pioneer Corps. Fatally wounded by a shell splinter during a shell attack while getting his men to cover. Died of wounds.
Additional Information
His brother Cyril was killed in action in the First World War.
Percival's mother was a supporter of the Memorial Community Church, Plaistow, who opened the new building in 1922 and dedicated the bells as a war memorial in 1925.
The Bells of Memorial Community Church, Plaistow (formerly Memorial Baptist Church).
The Memorial Church building was built after the First World War, and its east tower holds a unique ‘chime’ consisting of ten bells, which are cast with the names of local men who were killed in the war. The cost of the bells was provided by subscribers who donated "not less than one shilling". Cards were issued with the name of a man, his rank, where killed and when.
The chime of ten pealing bells was made by Gillett and Johnston of Croydon, installed in 1925 and cost £1000. The heaviest weighs 9cwt and the total weight of bell metal is nearly two tons. The bells are not the traditional English bells played with ropes. They are fixed in position, and played with a hand clavier – a bit like a keyboard without the keys – that moves the clappers to strike the bells.
When they were first installed they also had an “electro-pneumatic tune-playing machine” which played hymns automatically using rolls of paper – a bit like a Pianola. It would also strike the hour automatically.
The bells are a war memorial and have names of 201 men who fell in the First World War cast into them. This is the largest number of names cast into a set of bells anywhere in the UK, possibly the world.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
