Burial of soldier who Died of Wounds

[Tidybosh]

Hi

 

 my Great-Grandad Henry Simeon Burton(6951 1/Wilts)DOW @ Maida Vale Hospital 23/09/16.

He was then buried in his hometown of Tenby.

 

Would the Army have taken care of cost/arrangements etc ? Would it be normal practice to hometown and not local to Hospital?

 

TIA

 

 

[clive_hughes]

Hi

I think that unless the family or someone else paid the transport etc. costs for the body, the standard practice in Britain was to bury a deceased soldier at the nearest convenient/appropriate cemetery to the place of death.  The Army would pay for that.  

 

In some circumstances a pre-war employer might lend a hand? - for instance I have heard that ex-Railway employees might be granted their final transport by rail from place of death to home town for burial.  

 

Clive

[Scalyback]

Anything outside the hospital admin was paid by the family/benefactor apart from the gravestone if a CWGC one. 

It was not common(see the high burial rate around some main hospitals) but not unknown. 

 

 

[keithmroberts]

Fairly early in the war the government made available a transport grant so that the bodies of men who died at home (that included all of Ireland), could be returned for buria close to their family home. There is a thread elsewhere that included a copy of one of the official documents relating to this.

 

EDIT ; I can't find the relevant thread, but I am not making this up, I wish I could remember where I found it.

 

 

Keith

 

[Scalyback]

Keith was it a later ruling? If you could find the document I would like to see it for my records. 

 

EDIT

Further thinking. Was the grant not widely known about? 

 

Edited 15 November , 2018 by Scalyback

[keithmroberts]

I had a quick search and couldn't find it.  I am pretty sure it was in a GWF post somewhere, although I do hit many other sites with Great War connections.  I'll keep looking from time to time, but am pretty confident, given that I have also  researched one or two men who died in UK war hospitals and were sent home for burial to families with low potential earnings. If I find it I'll return to this topic. I also have two Jutland men from HMS Malaya who died of wounds in early June buried in a cemetery near my home in Portsmouth.

 

Keith

[HarryBrook]

This topic listed the multitude of Army forms that were in use. If a grant was made, or a request for assistance made, there sure to have been a form to be completed. Not light reading.

 

[Phil Evans]

It may have been the "Repatriating those KIA" thread.

From about here onward deals with home burials in the UK.

 

Phil

Edited 15 November , 2018 by Phil Evans

[Tidybosh]

Thank you all for your responses.