Died aged 38. 22 Dec 1878 – 2 April 1917. Private 21719, Somerset Light Infantry 8th Service Battalion (K3) SLI (63rd Infantry Brigade 37th Division).
Edwin Henry Court was born on the 22nd of December 1878 at Boniton, Dunster. He was the son of William & Jane (nee Webber) Court. His father William was a labourer. Edwin was baptised privately on 13 Jan 1879in Dunster. A private baptism often took place when the child was sickly and perhaps unlikely to survive.
The 1881 census finds Edwin (aged 2) living in Alcombe, Dunster, with parents William (34, an agricultural labourer) and Mary Jane (33), and siblings John (16), Alice (6), and Thomas (4). All were born in Dunster. Living with the family were two servants, Besy Parkman (26, a housekeeper in charge) and Edwin Court (17, a groom). The next address listed was Rock Head, Dunster.
Ten years later, in 1891, Edwin was 13, and had already started work as an agricultural labourer. He was living with his parents William (47, an agricultural labourer) and Jane (45), and siblings Eliza (4), William (3) and his 2-week-old sister Emily. The family lived in St George’s Street Dunster.
At the time of the 1901 census Edwin (22) was working as a builders carter. Living in St George’s Street, Dunster, with his brothers Thomas (24, a builders carter) and James (19, a Railway Packer on G W R). They hadn’t moved far from the family home as their nearest neighbours were their parents William (53, a carter on a farm) and Mary Jane (52) and their siblings William (13), Emily (10).
Edwin’s father William (a farm labourer) died aged 65 of an abscess on his bones, gangrene and heart failure on the 22nd December 1910 at St George’s Row, Dunster. His death was registered by his eldest son John Court (present at the death) of the Garddfon Inn, Portdinowic, North Wales.
When the 1911 census was taken, Edwin (31, a groom) was living in George Street, Dunster, with his widowed mother Mary Jane (63) and his siblings Eliza (25, a general help), Arthur William (23, a carter on a farm), and Emily (20, a nurse maid). Also living with the family were two boarders – Frederick Boden (aged 10) and Doris Rovison (6), and a lodger Thomas Bowen (60, a groom). Mary had had 10 children, 2 of whom had died.
Edwin enlisted in Minehead; the precise date is not known but it was before 29 May 1916, when, aged37, he gave his occupation as soldier when he married Jane Bowden (38, spinster of Minehead) on the 29th May 1916 at the Parish church in Minehead. Edwin and Jane were married by license. Jane was the daughter of Thomas Bowden (a labourer).
Edwin served as Private 21719, Somerset Light Infantry 8th Service Battalion (K3) SLI (63rd Infantry Brigade 37th Division). Formed in Taunton in October 1914 as part of Kitchener’s Third Army, and went to France, landing in Le Havre on 10th September 1915. The soldiers took part in lengthy marches. The battalion saw action as part of the British assault at Loos on the 26th September; the division suffered over 3,800 casualties. In 1916 they were in action at The Battle of the Somme. In 1917 they fought in first 3 phases of the Battle of Arras. Edwin died in the opening stages of the battle aged 38 on 28 April 1917 during the Battle of Arleux, 3rd in the series of the Battles of Arras 1917.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website describes him as the “son of Mary Jane Court, of St. George’s St., Dunster, Somerset, and the late William Court; husband, of Jane Court, of Northcote, St. Michael’s Rd., Minehead.”
Edwin is commemorated on the Arras Memorial, Bay 4, and on the plaques in St George’s Church and on the Memorial Hall in Dunster, Somerset.
