GUNNER LESLIE EDWARD JONES
HONOURABLE ARTILLERY COMPANY
3RD SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 27
BURIED: TRACK X CEMETERY, ST JAN, BELGIUM
Gunner Leslie Jones was his parents only son. He had three sisters but no brothers. His father, Edward Jones, was a caterer and he was his father's caterers manager. The report of his death in the Essex Newsman, on 22 September 1917, records that he "had been for nine years the representative in Southend of his father, the lessee of the Pier Refreshment Rooms, and proprietor of the White House, High Street"
Jones enlisted on 30 June 1915 and served with 2/B Battery Honourable Artillery Company, going with them to the front on 20 June 1917. The Battery took part in the opening battles of Third Ypres. Jones was killed on 3 September and buried in a small cemetery near St Jan.
His inscription, chosen by his mother, comes from The Wanderer, a long poem by William Wordsworth:
Oh blest are they who live and die like these,
Loved with such love, and with such sorrow mourned.
Wordsworth's 'blessed' are those who live and die in the heart of their community, surrounded by their family and friends who love them, bury them, and mourn them.