Profile

RUSSELL, Henry Hastings Le Cren
(Service number )

Aliases
First Rank		Last Rank

Birth

Date	25/10/1878	Place of Birth	St Leonards, Sussex, England

Enlistment Information

Date	28 July 1917	Age	38 years
Address at Enlistment	Private Bag, Gisborne
Occupation	Farmer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Single
Next of Kin	Mrs E. A. SELFE (friend), Dommett Avenue, Epsom, Auckland
Religion	Church of England
Medical Information	Height 5 feet 6½ inches. Hair black. Eyes grey. Complexion dark.

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation
Unit, Squadron, or Ship
Date
Transport
Embarked From		Destination

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
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		Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Sheep farmer

Death

Date	25 December 1952	Age	74 years
Place of Death	Ashburn Hall near Duneedin
Cause
Notices	The Times, London, 23 January 1953
Memorial or Cemetery	Cremated Andersons Bay Dunedin; ashes interred Northern Cemetery, Dunedin
Memorial Reference	Block 112, Plot 14a
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

Henry Hastings Le Cren Russell was the oldest of the three sons of Philip Henderson Russell and his wife Margaret Douglas née Le Cren. Born in 1878 in England, he would have been with his parents at Otipua near Timaru as a little child. His father Philip, a long-time invalid, died at Otipua nine weeks before the youngest was born and when Henry was only a little over two years old. Their mother remarried in 1886 in London, to George Row. She died in 1935 in Kensington, London. Probate was granted to her son George and his wife (who was Margaret’s niece). Henry and his brothers may have been educated at Taita School before going on to Wanganui Collegiate, Henry there from 1895 till 1897. Henry was a sheep-farmer at Gisborne when he was listed on the Reserve Rolls, was drawn in the ballot and called up, and enlisted, at the age of 38 years. In 1914 he was the nominated next-of-kin for his brother Philip. Like his brothers he travelled a great deal. His brother, George Gray Russell, served with the British Forces with distinction, and his youngest brother, Philip Durham Le Cren Russell, served with the New Zealand Forces in World War I. Henry Russell died on Christmas Day, 25 December 1952 at Ashburn Hall near Dunedin.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [09 March 2020]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [08 March 2020]; Britsih Army Medal Rolls (The National Archives) [09 March 2020]; Andersons Bay Cremation record & Northern Cemetery burial record (Dunedin City Council) [09 March 2020]

External Links

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, 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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