Name
Evelyn Ernest Arnold Collisson
19 Jul 1893
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
23/02/1916
22
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Bedfordshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
"A" Coy.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CERISY-GAILLY MILITARY CEMETERY
II. G. 22.
France
Headstone Inscription
BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD
UK & Other Memorials
Aldenham School Memorial, Aldenham, Window, St Mary's , Lower Gravenhurst, Beds
Pre War
Evelyn Ernest Arnold was born at Haynes Vicarage on 19th July 1893. He was the only son of Thomas Collisson. His mother’s name was Florence.
He was educated at Boxgrove school, Guildford and Aldenham, gaining a Junior Platt Scholarship, being placed at once in a high form. During his five years at the school he won classical, history and sports prizes and the school heaped honours upon him.
On leaving school his Housemaster wrote to his father: “He has achieved the greatest distinction possible at a public school”. Peterhouse College, Cambridge offered him a History Exhibition, to develop into a scholarship, but as he desired to enter into business life he did not proceed to the University.
He at once entered the house of Messrs Gibbs and Sons of 22 Bishopsgate, London, who that same year sent him out to their house in Valparaiso, Chile. Gibbs and Sons dealt in cloth, guano, wine, fruit, banking, shipping and insurance. There excellent prospects were held out to him, but at the beginning of the war he volunteered his services and cabled to his father, “May I come? I want to”. Receiving a favourable reply he, with Brian James Brett Walsh, an Aldenham scholar, in the same house of business, started over the Andes through the snow, on mule back, to Buenos Aires, being unable to travel by sea, as the German Fleet which sank the Monmouth was then in the Valparaiso roads.
Defeat of the German squadron at the Battle of the Falklands on 8th December 1914 no doubt allowed Collisson and Walsh to sail for England. He joined the Duke of Bedford’s Camp at Ampthill as a Second Lieutenant. At Aldenham School he passed the Military Certificate A, top, gaining unusually high marks; was a Sergeant in the Army Officer Training Corps and won the challenge cup for shooting.
Wartime Service
From the Ampthill Camp he went to the Front in France and was to have received a Headquarters Staff appointment. In fact he joined 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment.
Second Lieutenant Collisson was killed on 23rd February 1916, at 12.15 in the afternoon, shot by a sniper. The Battalion War Diary [X550/3/WD] tells us that it was snowing and very cold. The Battalion were at Maricourt on the Somme, at that time a quiet area, and manning the front line. 2nd Lieutenant E E A Collisson was buried at Maricourt, the officiating priest being the Rev G R Vallings, Chaplain of the 1st/7th Gordon Highlanders”.
Brian Brett died of wounds at Gallipoli with the Essex Regiment on 28th October 1915.
Biography
Additional Information
His mother, Mrs F Collisson of 8 Kingsley Road, Bedford, ordered his headstone inscription: "BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD"
Acknowledgments
Neil Cooper
