Edward Harold Beaumont

Lance Sergeant

Conflict:

WW1

Additional Information:

Son of William David and Emma Jane Beaumont, of Ruapuna, Ashburton. Native of Temuka.

References:

CWGC

Archives New Zealand

NZ WAR GRAVES

Public Contributions:

Exerpt from “A brief account of the Beaumont family of 15 Wakanui Road Ashburton” by H. W. Beaumont Compiled 1991 “Harold was born in Temuka on the12th June 1896. He came to Ashburton with his ...parents, brother Edgar and sisters Winifred and Irene in 1899. After a brief period in one of Andrew’s brick cottages in Eton Street, the family moved to a permanent residence at the corner of Wakanui Road and Eton street. From here Harold went for his schooling to Hampstead School. About the middle of his schooldays at Hampstead, a teacher drew the class’s attention to the French nature of his surname during a lesson on items of food in various countries, and Harold’s nickname dated from that lesson. He readily answered to the sobriquet: Froggy. As there was no free-place system for secondary education when he left school with a proficiency certificate in Standard Six, he went to work. Accepted for the Public Service, he began work in the Post Office as a telegraph messenger Harold and his brother Huia poured for hours over catalogues of steam and electric engines, motors and gadgets. Once they got as far as beginning to save up in order to buy a Bassett-Lowke locomotive. Huia made the money box - the ‘safe’- by punching a slot into a baking powder tin, and Harold inserted, from his wages, a whole sovereign. Unfortunately their mother got wind of the scheme and promptly turned the golden sovereign into an overcoat. The boys did not appreciate her logic just then for as a telegraph messenger, Harold had trousers, coat and overcoat supplied - but only for use on work days and while on His Majesty’s service. Next Harold bought a pair of fencing foils with which he and his younger brother sought to become rapier proficient, but Huia’s arm was too weak to counter his thrusts and passes so he invited Les Stone, also from the Post Office, to fence with him behind their tent bedroom on Sunday afternoons. Harold then became a popular Postman. The family noticed his popularity by the number of Christmas presents he brought home during that special week. He was ambitious too and transferred into the telegraph branch. After being chosen for the telegraphists' School in the Gallery (Wanganui) he was appointed to a full time post in Takapau. Soon after the outbreak of war in 1914, when he was 18, he tried to enlist but was turned down because of an incipient goitre. However by persistent treatment with an iodine lotion, he overcame this disability and was accepted for the 13th reinforcements. Training was unusually brief and but one leave period allowed. Harold came home, took Mother to Invercargill to visit her sister (Aunt Minnie) returned to Ashburton and then left for Trentham and England. In Sling Camp training was continued for a few weeks. Harold was given one leave period of 24 hours in which to visit Edgar in Hospital at Codford where he had been sent after being wounded in the first Somme battle in 1916. The reinforcement was sent to France in the following winter and had their first experience of the cold and mud, which was their portion through the wet summer and the autumn which followed. The field engineers strove gallantly to maintain lines of communication between Brigade Headquarters and the front line, and it was during an attempt to relay a line forward through the soft, muddy terrain and shell-holes that Harold was mortally wounded by shellfire. His mates got him to a forward first-aid post but according to the letter sent home, by one of the men who received him, he was almost eviscerated, and after asking the orderley to write home, he died the same day, 12 October 1917. He was lean, tall, handsome, lithe, fair, blue-eyed and full of fun and friendliness, cheerful, outgoing and considerate.” [Record since amended - NZWGT] Read More

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Casualty

Service Number:

24127

Name:

Edward Harold Beaumont

Rank:

Lance Sergeant

Date of Birth:

12 June 1896

Next of Kin:

William D. Beaumont (father), 15 (father), 15 Wakanui Road, Ashburton, New Zealand

Date of Enlistment:

Not known

Occupation on Enlistment:

Telegraphist

Armed Force:

Army

Unit:

NZEF, Canterbury Regiment, 2 Battalion

Casualty Details

Cause of Death:

Killed in action

Date of Death:

12 October 1917

Day of Death:

Friday

Age at Death:

Conflict:

WW1

Embarkation Details

Embarkation Body:

New Zealand Expeditionary Force

Embarkation Place:

Wellington, New Zealand

Embarkment Date:

27 May 1916

Transport:

HMNZT 54
HMNZT 55

Vessel:

Willochra or Tofua

Destination:

Plymouth or Devonport, England

Text in italics supplied by Cenotaph Online, Auckland War Memorial Museum

Cemetery

Cemetery:

Tyne Cot Memorial

Cemetery Reference:

N.Z. Apse, Panel 2.

Cemetery Location:

Belgium