SECOND LIEUTENANT ERIC LIONEL STEPHENSON
LINCOLNSHIRE REGIMENT
18TH MARCH 1916 AGE 24
BURIED: ECOIVRES MILITARY CEMETERY, MONT-ST ELOI, FRANCE
The Stephensons were a properous family living in Althorpe, Lincolnshire. The boys' father, Mr James Stephenson, was a local benefactor and JP. Eric's inscription tells the family story. Strangely, his is the only inscription that mentions the other brothers. The oldest, George, had emigrated to Canada and served with the Canadian Engineers. He was killed on 15 June 1915. The youngest, Lieutenant Urban Arnold Stephenson, Lincolnshire Regiment, was killed on 23 March 1918.
The War Graves Commission do not hold any family details for Urban, and he has no inscription, but he is definitely related to George and Eric because they are all three commemorated on the war memorial in Althorpe. The lack of family details could be because, as the the records show, Urban's body was originally only identified as that of an unknown British officer of the Lincolnshire Regiment. His body was exhumed, identified and reburied in Peronne Communal Cemetery Extension where, after the war, eleven cemeteries were concentrated into one. Perhaps the lack of information about Urban has something to do with the death of Mr James Stephenson in a car crash in 1925 .