Name
Benjamin Bastin
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
28/04/1917
28
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/34030
Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment
17th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
ARRAS MEMORIAL
Bay 7
France
UK & Other Memorials
Croxley Green Village Memorial, Croxley Green
All Saints' Church Shrine, Croxley Green
Rickmansworth Urban District Memorial
St. Michael’s Church Memorial, Chenies, Bucks
Pre War
Private Bastin’s parents, John and Jane (nee Coker) Bastin, lived at Chenies, Bucks, which was where Benjamin was born in about 1889.
In 1911, Benjamin worked as a domestic gardener at the Gardens, Loudwater. (Part of Loudwater was within the ecclesiastical parish of Croxley Green.) In 1901 he was living with his parents, two brothers and two sisters at 4 Chesham Road, Chenies. He had eight siblings. Jane died in 1916 and John died in 1940 in Honiton, Devon.
Benjamin’s marriage to Harriet Chard was registered in 1914 in Amersham, Bucks. After the war, his widow, lived at Ridgehill, Winford, near Bristol. She did not remarry and died in 1955. They had a child Marjorie born in 1916.
He is recorded as enlisting in Bedford.
Wartime Service
Formerly 4th Middlesex Regt with the same service number.
Killed in action during the Battle of Arras near Arleux on 28th April 1917, aged 28. On the evening of 27th the battalion had moved from Roclincourt to form up on the front allotted to them opposite the wood and village of Oppy. Meanwhile heavy shelling had taken place. They succeeded in occupying the enemy’s front-line trench. As they advanced they came under very heavy machine-gun and rifle fire from houses in the village followed shortly afterwards by serious fighting. The enemy suddenly rushed from both flanks and reoccupied the wood. This combined with their vigorous counter-attacks in front was disastrous. Only one officer and three men succeeded in getting back to the old British line.
Additional Information
After the war, his widow, lived at Ridgehill, Winford, near Bristol.
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Tanya Britton, Chorleywood U3A Our Village in the Great War, Brian Thomson Croxley Green in the First World War, Rickmansworth Historical Society 2014
