Francis Stanley Bond





West End Street after a factory fire, High Wycombe (picture from SWOP website)

Francis Stanley Bond's grave in High Wycombe Cemetery





Francis Stanley Bond 1896 - 1918

I am Francis Stanley Bond but most people called me Stanley. I was born in Lane End, Buckinghamshire in 1896. I was baptised on 11 October 1896. My parents were Albert Edward & Elizabeth nee Edwards. In 1901 we were living at Moor Common, Hambleden and my father was a general labourer. My younger brothers were Reginald aged 2yrs and Percy aged 6mths. Ten years later in 1911 we were still living at the same address and I was now 14yrs old and employed as a farm labourer. The family had expanded and I now had more siblings: Maurice aged 8yrs, Daisy aged 5yrs and Raymond aged 4yrs. So we must have been quite a handful for our parents.

I enlisted in Reading and joined the “Biscuit Boys ” or the Royal Berkshire Regiment, probably the 1/4th Battalion. At some time I was attached to the Royal Engineers but as my Service Records have not survived no further information is available. I can tell you, though, that I saw action in France from June 1915. In 1917 I married Lela Hill in the High Wycombe district and our address became 11, West End Street, High Wycombe.

My name then appears on a 'wounded list' published on 1st January 1918 and also in the Bucks Free Press on 26th April 1918. So I didn't have an easy time of it. The Battalion left France in late November 1917 and were then sent to Italy. I am unable to tell you when or how I arrived in Newcastle but I died in England at the 1st Northern General Hospital in Newcastle on Wednesday 20th November 1918 and my body was brought back to High Wycombe to be buried here in High Wycombe Cemetery.

My name, Stanley Bond, appears on the Lane End Holy Trinity Memorial, the Lane End Memorial Hall Plaque and the Lane End Village Memorial.



Researched by Ruth Bowler, Flackwell Local Area History Group

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