Edward Hunt: A Cheriton Fusilier of the Great War

Early Life and Family

Edward Hunt was born at Cheriton, Kent, on 13 June 1897, the son of George Hunt and Sarah Ann Rigden. He grew up in a family rooted in the village, appearing in the 1901 census as a four-year-old son and, ten years later, at 53 Church Road, Cheriton, where he was recorded aged fourteen. [1]

Edward came of age as Europe moved towards war. The surviving records do not identify a civilian trade before enlistment, nor do they record a marriage or children. They instead present the outline of a young man whose adult life was dominated by military service, illness, injury and the long medical consequences of campaigning on the Western Front. [1]

By 1918, Edward’s parents were living at 903 Stadacona Street East, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. This Canadian address was recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission after Edward’s death, demonstrating that his family’s connections extended from Cheriton to the Canadian prairie city even while he remained commemorated in his Kentish birthplace. [1]

Edward Hunt was a Cheriton-born soldier whose service took him through trench fever, gas injury and repeated hospital admissions before his death at home in Kent.

Military Service

Edward served as Private GS/52653 in the Royal Fusiliers, formally the City of London Regiment. His medal entitlement included the British War Medal and Victory Medal; the records also associate him with a wound stripe and the Memorial Plaque issued to the next of kin of those who died as a consequence of the war. [1]

His medical records show that he served first with the 32nd (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, known as the East Ham Battalion, in the 41st Division. This locally raised unit was one of the wartime service battalions formed for Kitchener’s Army, and it served on the Western Front until its disbandment in March 1918. [2][3][1]

Edward’s surviving case sheets provide unusual detail about the physical burden of his service. In February 1917, after nine months in uniform and two months with the field force, he was admitted through 139th Field Ambulance with suspected trench fever and transferred onward from the 41st Divisional Rest Station on 1 March. [1]

On 25–26 July 1917, he was again recorded by 139th Field Ambulance as “gassed”, with the entry marked as a wound. He was transferred through No. 21 Ambulance Train for further treatment. The record supports his eligibility for a wound stripe and shows that he suffered the direct effects of poison gas during the Third Battle of Ypres period. [1]

Further admissions followed: tonsillitis in February 1918, from which he returned to duty on 25 February, and pyrexia of unknown origin in June 1918. His June medical entry places him in the chain of evacuation passing through the V Corps Walking Wounded Dressing Station, No. 11 Casualty Clearing Station and No. 38 Casualty Clearing Station. [1]

The East Ham Battalion

The 32nd Royal Fusiliers had been raised in the summer of 1915 by the Mayor and Borough of East Ham, then an Essex suburb of London. As part of the 41st Division, it joined the Western Front in 1916 and took part in major operations including the Somme fighting, Messines and Third Ypres. [3][2]

Edward’s 1917 illness and gassing occurred while the battalion was part of the 41st Division during a demanding year. The division fought at Messines in June and at Pilckem Ridge and the Menin Road during the Passchendaele campaign. Conditions in the Ypres salient combined shellfire, mud, disease, heavy rain and gas warfare, leaving their mark on many men who survived the immediate fighting. [3][1]

In March 1918, the 32nd Battalion was disbanded. Edward was subsequently associated with the 7th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, a unit serving in the 190th Brigade of the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. The transfer placed him within a formation that had fought at the Somme, Arras, Ypres and Cambrai before facing the German spring offensive and the Allied advance of 1918. [4][5][1]

The 7th Battalion’s principal role was front-line infantry service. In 1918 it took part in fighting on the Somme, at Albert, Bapaume, the Hindenburg Line and the Canal du Nord. Edward’s June medical entry, which identifies the 7th Battalion, therefore reflects service during the period in which the Allies had halted the German offensives and were preparing for the sustained advance that began at Amiens in August. [5][1]

His surviving medical papers trace a soldier’s war beyond the battlefield: field ambulances, rest stations, clearing stations and ambulance trains were recurring features of Edward Hunt’s service.

Unit Context at Death

By late September 1918, the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division and its 190th Brigade were engaged in the Allied advance against the Hindenburg Line and its associated defensive systems. The 7th Royal Fusiliers’ official battalion history lists 1918 operations including the Somme, Albert, Ancre, Cambrai, St Quentin, Bapaume, the Hindenburg Line and Canal du Nord. [5]

Edward did not die in an attack on the Western Front. His service records indicate that he had returned to England, where he died in the Elham registration district on 1 October 1918. The immediate certified cause was epileptic convulsions. Although this was not a death caused by enemy fire on the day, the CWGC recognised him as a war casualty, reflecting the continuing consequences of his service and illness. [6][1]

The timing is striking. He died as his battalion and division were pressing forward in the final Allied campaigns, only weeks before the Armistice. His last documented field-force service had already involved sickness, gassing and fever, a reminder that military deaths could result from accumulated physical damage as well as combat wounds. [5][1]

Death and Burial

Private Edward Hunt died on 1 October 1918, aged twenty-one. His death certificate recorded epileptic convulsions as the cause of death. He was buried in Cheriton (St Martin) Churchyard, near the community in which he had been born and raised, in grave reference 1629. [1]

His burial at St Martin’s gave the Hunt family a local grave, unlike the many families whose relatives remained buried overseas or commemorated on memorials to the missing. The CWGC record identifies him as the son of Mr and Mrs G. Hunt, then of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and confirms his Royal Fusiliers service, date of death and burial place. [6][1]

The record is also preserved through a Find a Grave memorial and through the British Army registers of soldiers’ effects and pension records. Together with the National Archives medical series MH106, these sources make it possible to recover an unusually detailed view of Edward’s wartime experience. [1]

Legacy

Edward Hunt’s life was short, but the surviving evidence reveals a fuller story than a simple casualty entry. He was a Kent village boy, a Royal Fusilier, a patient in the military medical system and a young man repeatedly returned to duty despite illness and gas injury. His records demonstrate the human cost of the Western Front beyond the moment of battle. [1]

His service connected two very different Royal Fusiliers battalions: the locally raised East Ham battalion of the 41st Division and the 7th (Extra Reserve) Battalion of the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. Both units served in major operations, but Edward’s own papers show how combat, disease and medical evacuation shaped an individual soldier’s war. [3][5][1]

Edward is remembered in the churchyard at Cheriton, in the CWGC register and in the family record that names his parents in Canada. His grave and his medical papers ensure that he is remembered not only as one of the war dead, but as a son of George Hunt and Sarah Ann Rigden whose service spanned the harsh final years of the First World War.

Sources and Further Reading

• Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Private Edward Hunt.
• A Street Near You: Private Edward Hunt, Royal Fusiliers.
• Fusilier Museum London: Royal Fusiliers battalion locations, 1914–1918.
• The Long, Long Trail: 41st Division.
• The Royal Fusiliers in the Great War.
• The National Archives: First World War representative medical records, MH 106.
• Find a Grave: Private Edward Hunt, Memorial 121812730.
• Canadian Virtual War Memorial: Edward Hunt.
• Ancestry: census, military-medal, pension, effects and burial records cited in the individual report.

Sources
[1] Individual-Report-for-Edward-Hunt.pdf https://ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws.com/web/direct-files/attachments/141549598/c4e16fc9-b9fe-4f25-82e1-4d4cec11a546/Individual-Report-for-Edward-Hunt.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=ASIA2F3EMEYEZY2SYA54&Signature=%2BUriuB%2BVUxClaszYRdF0%2BVTnpAw%3D&x-amz-security-token=IQoJb3JpZ2luX2VjELb%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2F%2FwEaCXVzLWVhc3QtMSJHMEUCIQCiQcU3Xtyi17F2gJKFFG8HTouSQTeEYy2pse%2FW0KL7MgIgSpg9GspEXWFvVXpCkeF%2B1D%2Fmt3hp2oq4lo%2BO7a3iUS0q%2BgQIfhABGgw2OTk3NTMzMDk3MDUiDBWyraZS7lPT%2BhAVhCrXBLRhQa5VL2tVs0VxMsBOWceXpVY8i2E8pKrO0uCtxaoMgx%2Fo9e%2BE%2BTXxVft1b8aJWKKf7RLhnWxTSTGyGKYS6ArN5HeTfRdLy7pJDRTbAgtDHb820FGp7hOyXY3lsWj%2BLfk0DxRHGRI%2FPTu3TjeeSXDiE82uiiQ6BmdXc%2BsTmiEyBQJdUkiLEIUK%2BDnSEqaAMFaQ8PIM%2F6g280zFRvIy9EMm12bcGBX8SjIqB%2BpEfJY161S7xVF8Yngjwn2MzsnRHpzlcGdF32F5hKfoygBBHqkkKkstc2OLlBIS%2Bo2E8aSnQ%2BxkrVHlVJPjeg%2BbihhsqLp0OpDHAEWkM4j4dR%2BtRaJfW0o3ircRADgVOxgRfPjDvx0oYUNB6Y7hGXjO7XH90uh7kwds3lqdT3%2FpVTtfLrjwUKU31ZKtgXfSW%2FSesyW3yqtbe%2BYl%2B061x5TNeMMP0C0Uril57gnmk2iIJOsTJcFk0PulFWAkTlZQWJa6sNAt02r%2FpaVgwHhMs4WB54SoyaoBxyv6FJK2lrtRlY9LcirkgYjTORZH%2BYFoxd1e5yOmHVEvYr9PhB36p4T3Ph%2FTfIed0kT2rY88ILeKSDZfIIfZ%2F%2BMFYNJ12x6H0k%2Fo7pkZFT7r8wVpGe3PfZ%2FLV5fDDBSPANzVlsvMKdoDl1lUzjxwfooGy2cXyrYSEJFps55%2Fg2CxK1Zi3Yf3QRYmL0oCmG06Gg6lWStyRp2f1LdcDdKZaXUCNLQt8IqYtmQa0LnGA7T%2BiGE6wreY%2FqL%2BaOLS16sLrJR832c0vp00kREpQLbRGN0SWlVuMI%2B9%2BdUGOpgBFGkxhp9BbW7EaPN%2FN8BCUcLb%2B1LbVSwO%2BxQEWFpsmhhiPw7Ey%2Fi6MwQVrnZtLsNnL%2BiSQzGCkCqcAWOxR2Ak7WmRMHAfSpUsjOcCsH12ERqchqMqtt61%2BMSMoD4eXDX%2BY4vK2bUWlKAhKGo5GJISnKqvlJOnpOeZxmDphCUkeUomD4qjyEgbGpWSPly1NEA38%2Bst0N%2BQPPE%3D&Expires=1790862003
[2] 32nd (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (East Ham) – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32nd_(Service)_Battalion,_Royal_Fusiliers_(East_Ham)
[3] 41st Division – The Long, Long Trail https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/order-of-battle-of-divisions/41st-division/
[4] The Royal fusiliers in the great war https://archive.org/download/royalfusiliersin00onei/royalfusiliersin00onei.pdf
[5] [PDF] the royal fusiliers [the city of london regiment] locations of battalions … https://www.fusiliermuseumlondon.org/download?id=12382
[6] Private Edward Hunt Royal Fusiliers. Died Tuesday 1 October … https://astreetnearyou.org/person/368719/Private-Edward-Hunt
[7] Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) https://www.longlongtrail.co.uk/army/regiments-and-corps/the-british-infantry-regiments-of-1914-1918/royal-fusiliers-city-of-london-regiment/
[8] Research – FusilierMuseumLondon https://www.fusiliermuseumlondon.org/research
[9] Royal Fusiliers. World War One Photos, Obituaries & Service … https://ww1photos.com/Regiments/RFusiliers/7th.html
[10] Forces War Records – Historical military records https://uk.forceswarrecords.com/
[11] Royal Fusiliers – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Fusiliers
[12] Records for the War Dead of WW1 http://www.greatwar.co.uk/research/military-records/ww1-war-dead-records.htm
[13] Royal Fusiliers. World War One Photos, Obituaries & Service … https://www.ww1photos.com/RoyalFusiliers.html
[14] Full text of “The 32nd Division in the World War, 1917-1919” https://archive.org/stream/32nddivisioninwo00wisc/32nddivisioninwo00wisc_djvu.txt
[15] Unit and operational histories | Imperial War Museums https://www.iwm.org.uk/research/family-history/british-army/unit-and-operational-histories
[16] 7th Royal Fusiliers – Soldiers and their units – Great War Forum https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/29587-7th-royal-fusiliers/