Lieut H.R. Budden
Henry Richard Budden served with the 3rd Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment and was attached to 2nd Battalion the Lincolnshire Regiment when he was killed in action on 25 September 1915.
He is buried in the White City Bois-Grenier Cemetery, near Armentieres, France.
His age and service number are not recorded, but from the 1901 Census, I have discovered that he was 20 at the time of his death and was the son of Henry John and Jane Budden who farmed at Coombe Keynes
A.C. Budden
Arthur Budden, whose second name I believe was Cecil, although it is difficult to read on the 1901 Census, was brother to Henry.
The unusual title on the memorial lists him as 4th Officer R.I.M. I have been unable to identify this title or find any details of his death on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission list. However, Dr. Alistair Massie at The National Army Museum was able to identify the unit as the Royal Indian Marine, which later became the Royal Indian Navy. During WW1, this small fleet saw service in the Indian Ocean, carrying out minesweeping, troop carrying and patrol duties around East Africa, Aden, Iraq and Egypt.
I also asked a full time researcher to look for details at the British Library, who hold all records for the R.I.M. Despite searching for several weeks, he was unable to find any mention of 4th Off. A.C. Budden.
In August 2019 Simon Knight from Hastings contacted me regarding the Budden family.
He had found that Henry Richard and Arthur Cecil were remembered on the memorial in St. Helens Church in St. Leonard’s, near Hastings and asked if they could be the same family.
Between us we found that the father Henry John had died in 1906 and probably meant that the family lost the farm, as on the 1911 census they are now living in Bournemouth which show Jane as a widow and Henry as a domestic servant and Arthur aged 12 years.
Jane died in January 1915 and she was returned to Combe Keynes to be died with Henry John.
The details above show that Henry Richard was killed in action in September 1915, so was probably in the army when his mother died.
Simon’s research also shows that Arthur Cecil served on the ship, HMT Sofala which was registered to the British India Steam Navigation Company.
Arthur died in hospital in Bushehr in Iran on 22 September 1918 and is buried in the Tehran War Cemetery.