Booth, Benjamin

Booth, Benjamin MSM

Military History:

Regiment:                               General List

Rank:                                      Quartermaster and Honorary 1st Lieutenant

Service Number:                    7473

Date of Enlisting:                   13.6.1894

Date of death:                        12.1935

Cemetery/ Memorial:            Not known

UK Cemetery/Memorial:       St Mary’s Church Ashwell Roll of Honour

Benjamin first joined the 1st Hertfordshire Volunteers and enlisted with the Norfolk Regiment on 13th June 1894.  He was immediately transferred to the Bedfordshire Regiment, Regimental Number 4964, and was appointed Lance Corporal in November 1898. In 1902 the regiment was in the Khyber region of Pakistan, in 1910 they were in Burma and in 1912 they were in India.

In March 1904 Benjamin transferred to the Royal Irish Rifles, Regimental Number 7473. In 1911 he was appointed Orderly Room Sergeant.

In 1914, at the start of WWI the Royal Irish Rifles were stationed in Aden, Yemen but were shipped back to England and deployed with the Expeditionary Force to the front in France.

In 1915 Benjamin was with the 3rd Echelon Mediterranean Expeditionary Force which was the part of the British Army that commanded all Allied troops in Gallipoli and Salonika. On 1st January 1917 he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal (MSM).  On 1st May 1917 he is listed as Quarter Master Sergeant. On 2nd May 1917 he was promoted to temporary Superintendent Clerk, Warrant Officer Class 1. In 1918 he was Quarter Master and Honorary 1st Lieutenant with the General List.  During the War Benjamin served in the Balkan Theatre of War, Gallipoli. He survived the War.

Benjamin was awarded the 1914 Star, the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and the Oak Leaf (for being mentioned in dispatches) and the Meritorious Service Medal.

Benjamin died in December 1935.

He is commemorated on the St Mary’s Church Ashwell Roll of Honour.

Family History:

Date of Birth:                1st quarter 1876

Birth Place:                   Stowmarket, Suffolk

Residence:                    Ashwell, Hertfordshire

Marriage:                      2nd quarter 1907

Benjamin was born in Stowmarket, Suffolk in the first quarter of 1876, the eldest son of James Robert and Emma Harriet (nee Cole) Booth. The 1881 census shows the family living in Melbourn, Cambridgeshire. Benjamin was a pupil at the Merchant Taylors School in Ashwell.

Benjamin married Emily Canfield in Royston, Hertfordshire.  Emily lived in Ashwell as shown on the 1881 and 1891 census.

Emily went with Benjamin and the Regiment to Burma and India.

Benjamin and Emily had three children, Iris Elizabeth who was born in Burma on 11th September 1910 but who died in infancy, John Arthur who was born in India on 10th November 1912 but who also died in infancy, and Kathleen Margaret, born in Ashwell, Hertfordshire on 7 October 1912.

Benjamin died in December 1935.

Commentary:

Royston Crow