Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Natural causes is attributed those deaths due to causes that were not directly associated with the war. Included in this are wartime deaths resulting from, for example, theSpanish Influenza pandemic and its associated pneumonia problems and other attributions such as age and exhaustion. It also groups those who through Post Traumatic Stress committed suicide as a result of their experiences.

Detail :

PRIVATE WILLIAM CURWEN HONG KONG VOLUNTEER CORPS William Curwen was the first Masonic casualty of the Great War serving in the Army. It seems that he died of natural causes in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Volunteer Corps was a product of the imperial age, when home defence units were raised in various British colonies with the intention of allowing regular army units tied-up on garrison duty to be deployed elsewhere. These units were generally organised similar to British army lines. The first locally raised militia in Hong Kong was the Hong Kong Volunteers, a fore runner of what was to become the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers). Zetland Lodge No 525, of which Curwen was a member, was based in Hong Kong.

His death was reported in Page 4 of the Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 19th August 1914: "HONGKONG VOLUNTEER DIES AT POST. News was received early on Aug.10 of the death of Private Wililam Curwen, of the Hongkong Volunteers, who passed away at Stonecutters shortly after eleven o'clock the previous night. Mr. Curwen, who was but little over 43 years of age, was Head Master at Yaumati School. He arrived in the colony in 1900 as Head Master of Belilios Reformatory. During 1902 he was temporarily employed in the Colonial Secretary's office and took his late position in 1903, only leaving it for leave during 1908 and short terms at Victoria British School and Wanchai School. Mr Curwen leaves a widow and two children, who are at present in England, to whom the sincere sympathy of the community will go out in the loss they have sustained."

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley