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Remembered Today:

On Neuve-Chapelle Indian memorial yet died at home


Liz in Eastbourne

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Captain Edward Hornby Ovans is listed on the Indian memorial at Neuve-Chapelle by CWGC, 125th Napier's Rifles, died 23 March 1915.

But there is also a death announcement from his mother in The Times of 25 March 1915, saying he died on 23rd at Boscombe, Hants. (This oddly doesn't mention his widow, to whom probate was granted on 16 April.)

EDIT Sorry, no, his mother had died in 1909 so both parents were dead - I thought 'late' applied only to the father. Though she does not say he was her husband, the next assumption is that his widow did put it in as you would expect.

There's no SDGW entry, because he was Indian Army, and the Times notice doesn't say he died of wounds, nor can I find an obituary. I note there is a 125th Napier's Rifles War Diary for the period in the NA, which may suggest what happened.

To be on the Neuve-Chapelle memorial, wouldn't he have to have been wounded? Is this situation - being on a memorial yet died at home - unusual?

EDIT I meant wounded and missing presumed dead, when in fact he had been shipped home.

Liz

Edited by Liz in Eastbourne
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Hi Liz

This will be one for me to look at me; will be in touch later

Chris

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He would have had no known grave.

But he died in Boscombe, Nigel, according to the Times announcement from his mother. I assume she buried him - I don't know where but it would hardly have been unknown. And probate was granted in less than four weeks.

Hi Liz

This will be one for me to look at me; will be in touch later

Chris

Thanks, Chris. It's the opposite of a non-comm though, isn't it?

Liz

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Given that the memorial doesn't just commemorate Indian soldiers lost at Neuve Chapelle but was originally intended as a general one to all members of the Indian army with no known grave lost in F&F there must have had to have been a general gathering of records from many sources written at various times. This gives considerable scope for error and it's possible that in 1926 when the inscriptions were being selected and engraved there was no official record available of where he had been buried and so he was marked as a no known grave. The announcement may well have been in a ten year old copy of the Times but who was searching back through the archived copies in those days when all searches were by eyeball on paper editions?

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Sorry, not clear: what I meant was that being wounded had nothing to do with it: to be on the Indian Memorial at NC he had to have had (or been considered to have) no known grave.

It would be interesting to know where he was buried, if indeed he was, in the UK. Then the CWGC can remove his name from the NC Memorial and put an appropriate headstone up in the UK (although, as seems likely, he is buried in some sort of family plot with a family headstone).

Is he in Vol II of the Bond of Sacrifice, by any chance (I only have Vol I with me at the moment).

TTFN

Nigel

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His death was registered in Christchurch, Hampshire, which suggests he died in Britain and of course aligns with the "Times" statement that he died in Boscombe. He does not appear in "The bond of sacrifice".

I have a copy of the 125th Napier's Rifles diary but only up to early January 1915. He is mentioned when promoted to Captain on 29 November 1914, but at no other time.

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Yes, I saw the death registration and in fact I don't doubt that he died at home. I was just wondering how he came also to be on the memorial. Centurion's suggestion sounds very possible. I must say that I am then surprised that the family didn't say 'wounded at Neuve-Chapelle' or whatever it was.

Without any obituary, including Bond of Sacrifice and De Ruvigny - not that that is extraordinary in itself - it's tricky to get his story right.

Sorry - I forgot that there is a Gazette entry on 16 April 1915 that he was transferred to the temporary half-pay list, which goes against the idea that he was wounded at Neuve-Chapelle, though he could have been wounded earlier.

EDIT Sorry again, I am tying myself up in unnecessary knots, because this was after his death and only shows the army had got round to the transfer too late. If anything it suggests he hadn't been home long, so he could have been erroneously thought missing at Neuve-Chapelle..

Liz.

Edited by Liz in Eastbourne
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Sorry, missed Nigel's second post. I also wasn't clear, in that I really meant 'missing (but unbeknown to the memorial-makers wounded and shipped home)'! but you have answered that question between you.

Liz

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If it helps any in searching, there is a Rootschat thread regarding a HNV Harington in which Ovans becomes involved....

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=468561.0

The unknown sister's name was Mary Marjorie or Marjorie Mary.

She was married twice, firstly to Edward Hornby OVANS, Jun qtr 1910, Kensington.
Second marriage was to Alan F REDFERN, Sep qtr 1916, Eastbourne, which is where Guy's birth was registered in 1917.
E H OVANS was a Captain in the 125th Napier Rifles and died 23 May 1915 according to CWGC website.
St Peter Cranley Gardens, Kensington. 1910 Jun 15
Edward Hornby OVANS, 27, bachelor, Lt 125th Napiers Rifles Indian Army, 15 Selwood Place SW, father John Warnbent Ovans (deceased), Solicitor
Mary Marjorie HARINGTON, 24, spinster, -, 75 Enys Road Eastbourne, father Lt Col Harington IMS, Lt Colonel Indian Medical Service
Married after Banns
He signed as Edward Hornby Ovans, she signed as Marjorie Mary Harington
In presence of Henry Octavius Plews, Vere Katherine Collard, plus a couple of others whose names are illegible.
and
The Times, Thursday, Mar 25, 1915; pg. 1
OVANS - On 23rd March, at Boscombe, CAPTAIN EDWARD HORNBY OVANS, 125th Napier's Rifles, youngest son of the late J. L. and Mrs Ovans, of East Sheen, Surrey, aged 32 years. Indian papers - please copy.

EDIT To add a London Gazette entry, which is a bit puzzling..

The London Gazette 1 January 1904. The following Sub-Lieutenants have been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in His Majesty's Fleet:—
(Long list of Names, last one is) Edward Hornby Ovans. Dated 31st December, 1903.

I hope this adds to the info needed for a successful search!

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Thanks Kevin - but it doesn't unfortunately take us any further on my query.

I should, I guess, have come clean at the outset and said that I noticed Captain Ovans because I was researching Major William Guy Harington DSO, so I did read that Rootschat thread. I have got a bit beyond that, partly because I have just talked to the Major's nephew, who is also nephew of Mrs Ovans (who became Mrs Redfern) and he said as far as he recalled her first husband just died and wasn't on active service. I felt sure I'd seen a CWGC entry so came home and checked my notes etc and sure enough there it was. As there were no children, whereas there were from the second marriage, the details of Capt Ovans' life have been perhaps rather forgotten - I can completely understand that - but I was just trying to work out what happened there. I will go back to him and ask if he knows anything of a burial place; we didn't get on to that as I thought I must have misremembered the CWGC details.

Ovans was, unusually, in the navy before he was in the army (but I've come across a case before). The Gazette shows him confirmed as a Sub-Lieutenant in 1902, Lieutenant RN in 1904, and transferred from the King's Liverpool Regt to the Indian Army in 1908. I couldn't find the army-navy transfer but it's obviously between 1904 and 1908.

He was promoted Captain in November 1914 (LG 2 March 1915) and then as I mentioned transferred to the temporary half-pay list in April 1915, which to me makes the 'missing' supposition more difficult to account for.

EDIT No it doesn't - it was after his death, bureaucracy slow to catch up with events.

The transfer was cancelled 2 May because he was deceased, so his death was officially known.

EDIT I do think East Sheen might be the place to look for the grave if I can't get any more info, though, as you suggest with your bold type, as it was the family home. (His late father's middle name was Lambert, not Warnbent as the thread has it - that's an Ancestry mistranscription. )Then Boscombe as his address was there in the probate details. His widow remarried the following year.

EDIT I was mistaken in the belief that he had no children.

Liz

Edited by Liz in Eastbourne
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Would the CWGC not have contacted his family to tell them he was on the memorial after it was done? Maybe not but if they did seems that was the time the family would have informed them of an error. Very odd case indeed. Hope his grave can be located at least & things corrected.

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What with me in Battle, you in Eastbourne and Jim in Hastings ( :whistle: ) we've got the south coast of Sussex pretty much sewn up!

Sorry if you already knew all that I posted, I didn't know!

Interesting case though, Navy, Army, Indian Army, the poor chap must have had more adventures than Sinbad!

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Would the CWGC not have contacted his family to tell them he was on the memorial after it was done? Maybe not but if they did seems that was the time the family would have informed them of an error. Very odd case indeed. Hope his grave can be located at least & things corrected.

One suspects not, there are 4.700 odd names on the memorial in a time when office automation meant a tea lady set in her ways sending out that number of individual letters, even assuming that one had a record of the current address of NOK would have been a massive task. they may have produced a book of names but that's about it.

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Kevin

Yes, and there are a few more you haven't mentioned!

Not at all, I'm grateful you took the trouble - I should have said how far I'd got, rather than presenting the narrow question, as it will indeed require a bit of family knowledge and guesswork to find the answer to where he's buried. As I have a number of things to do at the NA soon I'll try and look at the Napier's Rifles war diary, which might tell us at what point he left them and why.

Perhaps Chris (chrisharley9) will find the answer first.

Liz

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One correction to my OP - the death notice was not put in by his mother - both parents were dead. I jumped to that conclusion because I thought 'late' applied only to the father. So it probably was his wife who put it in, but it's odd she didn't mention he was her husband. I don't know that that helps at all, though.

Liz

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It looks like his death registration details/death certificate could be obtained using the details of March quarter 1915, Registration District of Christchurch, 2b 1329. I know that it wouldn't show his place of burial, but should list his exact date/place of death, what he died from, and who the informant was.

Regards

Chris

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One suspects not, there are 4.700 odd names on the memorial in a time when office automation meant a tea lady set in her ways sending out that number of individual letters, even assuming that one had a record of the current address of NOK would have been a massive task. they may have produced a book of names but that's about it.

Thanks, guess I was thinking of the notice for a family to put some words on a stone for an identified grave.

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It looks like his death registration details/death certificate could be obtained using the details of March quarter 1915, Registration District of Christchurch, 2b 1329. I know that it wouldn't show his place of burial, but should list his exact date/place of death, what he died from, and who the informant was.

Regards

Chris

You're right, Chris, there's a handy spot to click on the Ancestry site to do this, but it costs £22.90 and I'm afraid Ovans is not central enough to my concerns, and I'm too hard up, to do this!

Liz

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CGM highlights a very pertinent aspect;

Many of the Family History sites do NOT link to the General Register Office but to intermediaries, sometimes looking very official, but who add extra handling charges and possibly some commission back to those Family History sites.

In addition, as they order the document, it has to go to them first and then be posted to you, thus incurring additional delays.

Anything more than £9:25 and someone is making money out of you.

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Perhaps this very useful point should be made somewhere where it's more likely to be found - I wonder where?

On Ovans, I shall wait till my family query can be made, which may be a while as the person concerned is on holiday. I'm not all that hopeful he will know the answer. I still hope CWGC may shed some light, if that is where Chris's enquiries will focus.

Liz.

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Two more snippets:

From his naval record:

Allowed to resign Commission 2 May 1904 (private reasons)

From the London Gazette: Issue 27781, page 2549, date 4 April 1905

3rd Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment: Edward Hornby Ovans, Gent, to be Second Lieutenant. Dated 5 April 1905.

Martin

(also from East Sussex)

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Thanks, Martin (may see you at the Redoubt again soon perhaps?)

Didn't find those two - thanks! You have nailed his departure from the navy. I wonder what the private reasons were

From a very superficial look at other records with the same unusual name, it seems they were an Indian Army family, though his father was a solicitor (born in India). So it was odd him being in the navy.

And he was in the Dorset Regiment before the Liverpool Regiment before the Indian Army, didn't know that either.

Liz

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