Edgar Francis Boughton

Edgar Francis Boughton was born on 13th November 1895 in Easton-on-the-Hill. His parents Harry and Emma Jane had eleven children but sadly two died in infancy. In the early 1900s the family moved to 7 Greeba Villas, Barnack Road, Stamford and Edgar began working with his father as a gilder and decorator.

In April 1914 he joined the Lincolnshire T.A. and was attested in Stamford on 24th April 1914. Mobilised at the outbreak of WWI, he was by then an apprentice turner at Blackstone’s Engineering Works. He was 18 years 6months old and stood 5foot 7inches tall with an expanded chest measurement of 33 inches. His physical condition was good as was his vision and he became Private 2067 in the 4th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. The Regiment suffered horrendous losses in France particularly at the Hohenzollern Redoubt and the Battle of Loos.

The surviving men, including Edgar, now a Sergeant, formed part of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, sent to fight the Turkish army in 1916. Edgar was wounded in June of that year and put on a hospital ship on the Nile. After a year in hospital in London, he was finally discharged from the army on 10th February 1919, assessed as 20% disabled with “cardiac weakness attributed to war service”.

On 19th March 1919 he was allocated a pension of 9 shillings per week to be reviewed in 26 weeks’ time. He had served for almost five years and earned three medals —the 1914 star, the Victory medal and the British War medal, known irreverently to soldiers who served in WWI as ‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred’.

He returned to Stamford, completed his apprenticeship and became a well-known figure in the town, marrying Florence Mary Wallace in St Martin’s church on 7th December 1924.

Two sons were born, Harry Glen and John Edgar. He was a keen sportsman with an interest in Stamford Daniels and he and his wife ran several local businesses, eventually retiring to Clare Lodge, Wothorpe. Edgar died there on 12th March 1978.