Name
Leonard Burgess
20/03/1896
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
02/05/1915
19
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
G/7245
Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment)
3rd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 49 and 51.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
He has no Headstone. He is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial to the missing in Belgium.
UK & Other Memorials
Cheshunt Town Memorial, St Clemence Church Memorial, Turnford, Not on the Widford memorials
Pre War
Leonard Burgess was born in Widford, Hertfordshire on 20th March 1896. Son of Richard Burgess a, Garden Nursery Worker and Fanny Burgess (nee King). One of six children although 3 died in infancy.
Leonard was baptised on 3rd May 1896 in the Parish of Widford.
In 1904 the family were living at 167 Cheshunt Street, Turnford, Herts.
He attended Turnford School and then Cheshunt Dewhurst Endowed Boy’s School, leaving on 13th March 1910, to start work aged 14.
1911 Census records Leonard aged 15, working at a Garden Nursery, living with his parents, brothers Frank (17), and Sidney (12), his grand-father William King (77) a widower was living with the family at, 173 High Street, Cheshunt, Herts.
Wartime Service
Leonard enlisted at St Paul’s Churchyard, Middlesex, posted to the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex Regiment) with the service number G/7245.
He arrived in France on 1st April 1915, and was killed in action, just 31 days later in Belgium, on 2nd May 1915, aged 19, during the Second Battle of Ypres, (22nd April – 25th May 1915).
He has no known grave; he is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial to the missing in Belgium.
Additional Information
His effects of £3-00s-9d, Pay Owing and a War Gratuity of £3, went to his mother Fanny Burgess
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Malcolm Lennox
