John Branston was born in 1899 in Oakham, his mother Ada’s home town. The family lived in Collyweston in 1901 and father Richard was an agricultural worker. Later he became a gamekeeper on the Burghley estate and John and his older sister Ellen moved with their parents to a cottage in The Maltings, Burghley Park.

At some point in WW1 John enlisted in the 2nd Battalion Machine Gun Corps as Private 133050. Sadly he ‘died of disease’ on 4th November 1918, just a week before the end of the war. He was buried in the Communal Cemetery Extension in Abbeville, Dept de la Somme, Picardie, France and is remembered on St Martin’s War Memorial.

Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension