Name
Henry Burgh Gair
10 July 1882
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/05/1918
35
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
Dorsetshire Regiment
1st Bn., attached 14th Brigade, Pioneer Corps
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BAGNEUX BRITISH CEMETERY, GEZAINCOURT
I. F. 21.
France
Headstone Inscription
When I Awake After Thy Likeness I Shall Be Satisfied With It
UK & Other Memorials
Bushey Town Memorial
Pre War
Born in Toxteth Park, Liverpool on 10 July 1882, Henry Burgh Gair was the eldest of three children of Walter Burgh and Elizabeth (née Jevons) Gair. His parents were married in 1880 in the West Derby registration district and Henry had two sisters; Ethel Burgh (b Q1 1886) and Dorothea Burgh (b Q3 1889), both of whom were registered in the Toxteth Park district.
There is also a birth in Q3 1884 of an unnamed male and, since it is the only other birth throughout this period in the Toxteth Park district, is likely to have been a brother who had died in infancy.
Henry was educated at Rugby School and then at Merton College, Oxford before being employed on 28 June 1904 as a Clerk with Baring Brothers and Co Ltd, Liverpool.
Henry’s father was a banker and in 1907 a Director of the Great Central Railway, with a railway engine named after him. Henry spent his early years in Toxteth Park with his two sisters, where his parents employed four servants.
By 1911 the family had moved south and were living at Kestrel Grove, Bushey Heath, a large family house which is now a Nursing Home. At that time, Bushey Heath was a pleasant and prestigious place to own or rent a country house within convenient travelling distance from London. Henry lived there with his parents and was employed as a bank clerk as the first stage in a banking career.
In the spring of 1911 he married Mary Dorothea Moultrie Coleridge, who was age 24 and was a High School Mistress in Croydon. Mary was the daughter of Ernest Hartley Coleridge (1846 – 1920), a British literary scholar and poet and he was the son of Derwent Coleridge and grandson of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ernest completed scholarly work on his grandfather’s manuscripts, being the last of the Coleridge family involved in their editing. He also took part in the campaign to buy for the nation the Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey.
Wartime Service
Henry enlisted as Private 9961 with the Officer Training Corps and was discharged in 28 November 1917 to a commission as Second Lieutenant with the 1st Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment, and attached to the 14th Brigade Pioneer Company.
He was wounded on the 14 May 1918 as the Battalion were relieved by the 5th/6th Battalion, Royal Scots near Bretencourt and died, aged 35, in the Officers’ Hospital No 3 Casualty Clearing Station on 15 May 1918 of his wounds. He was buried at Bagneux British Cemetery, Gezaincourt in France.
His death was announced in The Times and he is commemorated on the Bushey Memorial.
After his death, his wife moved to 110, Goldhurst Terrace, Hampstead. She never re-married and died in London in December 1941.
Additional Information
Information provided with the kind permission of Bushey First World War Commemoration Project – Please visit www.busheyworldwarone.org.uk. Information also drawn from the Imperial War Museum website - please visit www.livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk
Acknowledgments
Andrew Palmer
Dianne Payne - www.busheyworldwarone.org.uk, Jonty Wild, Paul Johnson
