Edward Owen PRICHARD

Credit Jules Wallis

I am an assistant archivist and we are currently updating those who fell in WWI including PRICHARD, Lt Edward Owen who attended fELSTED School Jan 1901 April 1902.

I would like to seek permission to use the image of the Memorial at Broadway, St Michael And All Angels, Church, Worcestershire for our data base and a book to commemorate the fallen heroes.

Edward Owen Prichard, born in Lewisham, was one of seven probates at Felsted between 1893 and 1964. He was 5 feet 7 and a half inches with a fresh complexion, blue eyes and brown hair and had a number of a-half marks. He was educated at Lindisfarne, Lee before coming to Felsted School in 1901-2, during which he was awarded Commendations in 1901 for mathematical papers and in 1902 for Euclid and algebra papers207. He subsquently entered the office of the Cycle Trade Publishing Company, where he remained for eight years. He then went to farming as an "orchardist" when the Great war broke out. He volunteered in Melbourne for service and was commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant into the 13/21st Battalion, Australian Imperial Force on 1st June 1915, stating that he had previously spent two years in the 3rd volunteer Battalion of the Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. His unit embarked at Melbourne on 3rd July 1916 on HMAT Ayrshire, arriving in Plymouth on 2nd September and proceeding to Australia on 22nd October. Promoted to Lieutenant on 16th December 1916.

He was killed in action at Grevillers, Bapaume on 13th March 1917. He is buried at the Grevillers British cemetery. He is also remembered on panel 94 in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial and St Michael and All Angels Church, Broadway, Worcester as his elder brother Arthur Prichard who died ten months earlier in 1916.

The Argus, Melbourne, Victoria, newspaper, reported on Thursday 23rd August 1917 under the heading Wills and Estates: "The Trustees, Executors, and Agency Co. Ltd. is applying for probate of the will of Edward Owen Prichard, late lieutenant in the Australian Expeditionary Forces, on active service abroad, who died on March 13. His estate is valued for probate at £608 4s 2d, and is divisible amongst relatives."162(Equivalent value in 2016 to £47,732.87)