Service: Royal Army Service Corps
Service No: S/436619
Date & place of birth: 1894 in Rogate, Sussex
Date & place of death: 1 September 1919 (aged 24/25) in North Russia
Edward Blunden was born and brought up in Rogate and was a bricklayer’s apprentice before joining up. He married in 1917 before being sent to Northern Russia to fight the Bolsheviks.
Family background
Edward George Blunden was born in Rogate in 1894. He was the oldest of three children [all sons] of Charles Blunden, who was born on the Mile End Road, London, a bricklayer, and his wife Sarah Ann from Worcestershire. In 1911, Edward, his parents and brothers lived at Sandy Lane Cottage, Rogate and he was employed as a bricklayer’s apprentice.
In 1917, Edward married Ellen Collins, who had been born in Rogate in 1892 in Fyning Common. Ellen was one of seven children. By 1911, she was employed as a servant at Rogate ,Lodge.
In 1901 Edward and the rest of the Blunden family lived at Sandy Lane Cottage, but there was at that time only two sons – Edward and Frederick.
Military service
Edward enlisted in Portsmouth and initially was with the Royal Sussex Regiment. Later he was transferred into the Royal Army Service Corps and at the end of the war was still fighting with this unit in North Russia. Service documents indicate that he was a Private but his memorial stone in Rogate Cemetery states that he was a Sergeant and died as a prisoner of war in Moscow.
Death and commemoration
Edward died in Russia on 1 September 1919 nearly a year after the end of the war in Europe. More research is required in order to establish whether he died in North Russia or in Moscow as a prisoner of war, as stated on his memorial stone in Rogate Cemetery.
Edward is commemorated on the Archangel Memorial and on a gravestone in Rogate Cemetery.