Name
Edwin John Curle
13/10/1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
22/05/1917
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
204244
Bedfordshire Regiment
6th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TANK CEMETERY, GUEMAPPE
Sp. Mem. A. 45. Buried near this spot.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, Kings Langley Village Memorial, All Saints Church Memorial, Kings Langley, 'K' Division Police Memorial, Forest Gate, London
Pre War
Edwin John Curle was born on 13 October 1894 in Bermondsey, Camberwell, London/Surrey, the son of Arthur John Curle (1865 – 1929) and Eliza Curle (1864 – 1939) (nee Grover) and one of six children, Maggie E. (1888), Edith M. (1890), Richard H. (1893), Charles W. (1897) and Dorothy E. (1901).
Edwin and his older brother Richard attended Immanuel Church of England Primary School on Streatham Common from 20 September 1901. On the 1901 Census the family were living at 80 Credon Road, Camberwell, London where his father was working as an Engineer's Labourer.
Edwin's father moved to a new job as a Furnace Stoker at Leavesden Asylum in 1906 and the family moved to King's Langley, Herts. Edwin and Richard then left school in Streatham and Edwin started worked at John Dickinson & Co Ltd at Home Park Mills. A year later he left Dickinsons to work for G B Kent & Sons Ltd, brush manufacturers, at their Frogmore factory. Whilst there he earned a reputation as a goalkeeper for the factory team and Edwin and his brother Richard also played in the Kings Langley team between 1910 and 1914.
By 1911 Edwin and his family were living at Primrose Hill, Kings Langley and Edwin, aged 16, was working as a Brush Engraver. He was living with his parents, three siblings and his grandmother Jane Curle.
In 1914 Edwin left G B Kent Ltd and joined the Metropolitan Police on 14 December 1914 as PC 104544 based in Bow where he served for two years.
On 10 February 1917 Edwin married Ethel Sanger Anderson, at St Mary's Church, Apsley End, Hemel Hempstead. The service was conducted by the Rev. James Lendrum (who was killed in August 1918 whilst conducting a burial service as an Army Chaplain in France). The couple had little time together before Edwin returned to his Regiment and was sent to France the following month.
Wartime Service
At the end of 1916, the Metropolitan Police gave permission for the release of some of their officers to enable them to enlist for overseas service which Edwin did on 13 January 1917 at Poplar, Middlesex, joining the 1st Battalion, Hertfordshire Regiment. (Service No. 271258). He was later transferred to the 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment with the Service Number 204244.
He arrived in France on 28 March 1917 and was soon in action in the the First Battle of the Scarpe, followed by the Battle of Arleux on 28 April. The Battalion was back in the trenches by 19 May and the war diary for 22 May 1917 recorded “Very heavy shelling by hostile artillery towards evening, followed by Gas shell bombardment at night. Casualties 7 killed and 14 wounded”.
Edwin was was one of the seven men killed during the Gas shell bombardment on the front-line trenches. A letter to his widow stated that he was killed instantaneously by a gas shell, and although he had not been with them for long he had already been made a Lance Corporal.
He was 22 years old and is buried at Tank Cemetery, Guemappe, France.
Additional Information
His younger brother Lance Corporal 321806 Charles William Curle, of the London Regiment (City of London Rifles) was Killed in Action at Cambrai on 30th November 1917. His widow Ethel received a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing of £1 10s 0d. She also received a widow’s pension of 13s 9d a week from 17th December 1917. His widow later lived at 4 St Albans Road, Durrants Hill, Apsley End, Hemel Hempstead. Edwin was commemorated at a Memorial Service held in Westminster Abbey on 17 May 1919 for the Metropolitan policemen who had fallen in the Great War. His name is also recorded in a 'Roll of Honour' which is on permanent display in the Abbey. He was also remembered in the 1919 Easter Service at Holy Trinity Church, Leverstock Green, along with other men from the village who died in the war.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne, Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, Paul Johnson, www.hemelheroes.com.
