Algernon Henry Porteous Easlea

Born: 18 March 1886

Died: 19 January 1918

Rank and Regiment: Gunner 163822 in the 99th Siege Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery (formerly Private 12806 in the 2nd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment)

Resting Place: Chocques Military Cemetery, France

Memorials: St. Margaret, Garvestone, United Kingdom

Algernon Easlea was born on 18 March 1886 at Ixworth, Suffolk. He was admitted to King Edward VI School, Bury St Edmunds, in 1897, when his address was given as Hill House, Ixworth, Bury St Edmunds. He was the second son of William Easlea, farmer, and Rosalind his wife; the family appears to have been reasonably prosperous as on the 1891 Census are listed both a cook and a nurse.

Algernon left King Edward VI School in 1899 and in the 1901 Census was listed as a cadet at the Thames Nautical Training College aboard HMS Worcester at Swanscombe, Dartford, passing out as a midshipman in 1905.

By 1911, however, he was working as a Bank Clerk and living in Beccles. He had married Vera Worts in 1910 at Wangford, Suffolk.

His enlistment papers do not survive but his medical records do, and he is recorded as suffering shock and shell contusions to the legs on 19 July 1916. At that time he was in the 2nd Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment. He subsequently transferred to the Royal Garrison Artillery.

He was killed on 19 January 1918, and is buried at Chocques Military Cemetery, near Bethune. Most of the burials in that cemetery are of casualties who died at the Casualty Clearing Station at Chocques from wounds received at the Bethune front.

The inscription on his gravestone reads:

WHO LOVED ME AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME

He left a substantial estate of £3,530 13s 4d. He is described by CWGC as “Son of William Henry Easlea, late of Tunstead Hall, Norfolk; husband of Vera Nellie Easlea, of ‘South Dene’, Kimberley Rd., North Walsham, Norfolk”.

His (tenuous) connection with Thuxton arises through his older brother and joint executor William John Fellowes Easlea, who in the 1914 Electoral Register is recorded as living with his wife in one room at Thuxton Rectory.

As well as the Memorial at Garvestone Church, he is commemorated together with his mother on a brass plaque in Thuxton Church.

Chocques Military Cemetery, France