Dates:
1898 - 1915
War Service:
Private BURDEN, HERBERT FRANCIS, 3832 of the 1st Battallion Northumberland Fusiliers. Found guilty of desertion Transcript of trial and background; executed, 21 July 1915. He previously had joined the Royal West Kent Regiment as a boy soldier before 1913 and joined the Northumberland Fusiliers before arriving in France.
Location of Memorial:
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL on Addenda Panel 60, Remembered through the Shot at Dawn Memorial [His image stands, blindfolded and strapped to a wooden execution post, eternally awaiting the order to fire], Lichfield and on the memorial at St Laurence, Catford. He seems to have been added to the memorials but other than this it does not show the way he died.
Details:
He died 21 July 1915 aged 17 years. His entry on the memorials and at the CWGC hides a sad fact that Herbert was one of the 306 British soldiers who were shot at dawn. He was born 22 March 1898 in Lewisham, where his father worked as a gardener.
Source:
Contributed By:
Do you have more information on this person or the memorial they are commemorated on? If so click here to contribute information.
by Local History and Archives Centre, Lewisham and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence