Current Information:

Born-Shoreditch

Nine Elms British Cemetery, Belgium

Each infantry division had a pioneer battalion. Their ranks were made up from labourers and skilled and semi-skilled workers and although they were trained to fight as infantrymen, their role was one of construction , road making and building. However this did not mean that they were not in danger. Shell fire was indiscriminate as to whom it killed. 18th Middlesex were the pioneer battalion of the 33rd Division and for the first three months of 1918 they were hard at work around Passchendaele in the Ypres salient, clearing captured pill boxes, repairing tracks and working on the drainage. Edward Bennetts was wounded while engaged in these tasks and died as a result of these wounds on 8th March.