The Queens Own Royal West Kent R

The Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment

Second Lieutenant E A Bigsby

Photograph by "Woose"

Second Lieutenant Edgar Arthur BIGSBY, 8th Battalion, Queens Own Royal West Kent Regiment, killed in action, at Loos, 25th September 1915, age 24.

Born 19th October 1891, Moscow, Russia.

Son of Sydney Herbert Bigsby and Sarah Helena Lehrs, of "Kingsgate", Wash Lane, Clacton-on-Sea, Essex.

Commemorated at Loos Memorial, Panel 95 to 97, Pas de Calais, France.

OBITUARY

Edgar Arthur Bigsby was the second son of Sidney Bigsby, of Moscow, Russia.

He left from the Lower Sixth, Tonbridge School in the summer of 1910 and went to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1914 with a 2nd Class in the Final Honours School of Modern Languages (Russian).

He was at his home in Moscow when war was declared. He had been in the O.T.C. here and also at Oxford, and returning from Russia to take a commission as soon as he realised the country's need, he was gazetted to a commission as Temporary 2nd Lieutenant in the 8th Q.O. Royal West Kent Regt., dated November 19th, 1914.

He only went out to France at the beginning of September, and it now appears certain that he was killed at Loos on September 26th, 1915. He was originally reported by the War Office as killed in action, but this never appeared in the casualty lists. The report was afterwards changed to "wounded and missing" and his name appeared in the casualty list on November 15th amongst the missing. Even now there is no positive proof. Information received from privates and N.C.O.'s points to his having been wounded early in the day. One private of the Platoon says that he was very seriously wounded in the body and left in an apparently hopeless condition; whilst one of his Lance-Corporals, in hospital at Etaples, said that at about 11.30 a.m. that day, being himself wounded, he saw Liuet. Bigsby on the ground, crawled to him and, finding him badly wounded in the side and his condition evidently very serious, loosened his equipment for him,, and was then told to look after himself. He appears to have been wounded on the top of a hill opposite Loos, to the left of "The Quarry" and known as "The Towers".

The Battalion lost so severely that no information has been obtainable from officers. The survivors of his Platoon, who have written or been interviewed, have spoken of him with appreciation and regard.

Tonbridge School and The Great War of 1914 - 1918.

This page was last updated on 20-Aug-2023.