Profile

EDWARDS, Benjamin Gordon
(Service number 7/42)

Aliases
First Rank	Trooper	Last Rank

Birth

Date	16/08/1887	Place of Birth	Invercargill

Enlistment Information

Date	13 August 1914	Age	27
Address at Enlistment	Orari Bridge, Geraldine; Canterbury;
Occupation	Beekeeper (for FE South, Geraldine)
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	Benjamin Edwards (father), 90 McFadden’s Rd, St Albans, Christchurch
Religion	Church of England
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	Main Body
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	Canterbury Mounted rifles
Date	15 October 1914
Transport	Tahiti or Athenic
Embarked From	Lyttelton	Destination	Suez, Egypt

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns	Egyptian 1914-1915, Balkans (Gallipoli, Mudros, Lemnos)
Service Medals	1914-1915 Star, British War Medal, Victory Medal, Gallipoli Medallion & lapel badge (1967)
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date	4 September 1916	Reason	No longer fit for war service, on account of injury sustained on active service..

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

27 May 1915 - Admitted to No.1 Stationary Hospital; 31 May - transferred to Malta; 11 September 1915 - Admitted to Hospital, England; 11 January 1916 - Transferred to depot, Hornchurch.

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date	17 April 1968	Age	81
Place of Death	Rotorua
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery	Rotorua Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Son of Benjamin and Mary Ann Edwards nee Smith.

Benjamin was admitted hospital 27 May 1915, transferred to Malta, then to England. While in England he was discharged for a furlough from 29 September 1915, returning to the base depot at Weymouth on 18 October 1915. In January he was transferred to the convalscent hospital at Hornchurch.He was discharged as no longer fit for service and returned to NZ in September 1916. Benjamin served for a total of two years and 23 days, 1 year and 295 days of which was served overseas. His military service cover sheet gave his intended address as Napier, while his discharge papers stated Timaru.

After the war Benjamin married Myra Madelene Ada Gawler in 1921. He died in Rotorua on 17 April 1968.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database (January 2015); NZ Births, Deaths, and Marirages at https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/Home/; Archives New Zealand: Paperspast at paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/; NZ Defence Force Personnel Records, Archives NZ R21000220 [30 August 2023]; SCRoll web submission by N Carter, 29 August 2023.

External Links

Researched and Written by

Liz Shea, SC branch NZSG; Carol Bell, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

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