Name
Leonard Pitkin
6/9/1883
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/09/1916
33
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Gunner
88560
Royal Garrison Artillery
27th Anti-Aircraft Company
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
RICKMANSWORTH (CHORLEYWOOD ROAD) CEMETERY
F. 5. 15.
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Croxley Green Village Memorial, Croxley Green,
All Saints' Church Shrine, Croxley Green,
Rickmansworth Urban District Memorial,
John Dickinson & Co Memorial, Croxley Mills, Croxley Green,
Not on the Apsley memorials
Pre War
In 1911 he worked as a clerk at Croxley Mills and lived with his father George, a Dickinson’s pensioner, at 9 Dickinson Square. Leonard’s father had been a beater-man at the mill and his mother was Charlotte. The family came from Apsley.
Leonard was born on December 16th, 1883 and was registered in the Hemel Hempstead district in the first quarter of 1884. His death was completely unexpected and came as a great shock to his family and friends since he was not thought to be in danger. Croxley resident, William Toms wrote to his son Edgar, 'You will be sorry to hear poor Len Pitkin is dead. He met with an accident.... He was engaged with an anti-aircraft section at a quiet little village near Leeds. They were moving their gun and he tried to mount whilst the carriage was in motion, slipped and fell under the hind wheels....and died very quickly. Poor quiet Len is gone.'
According to the vicar at All Saints’ (in the October 1916 magazine), Leonard was a reserved man, a faithful member of the church and teacher in the Sunday School. He is buried in Chorleywood Road cemetery, Rickmansworth.
Leonard left effects worth £233 7s 3d to his father. His married brother Archibald was injured during an air-raid on 30th August 1940 at the Vauxhall Motor Works at Luton and died the same day at Luton and Dunstable Hospital.
He is recorded as born in Apsley and living in Croxley when he recorded as enlisting in London.
Wartime Service
Gunner Leonard Pitkin died at Cliffe near Selby in Yorkshire while training on 3 September 1916 aged 33. He slipped, was run over by the wheel of a gun carriage and died shortly afterwards.
Leonard belonged to the 27th Anti-Aircraft Company of the Royal Garrison Artillery.
Additional Information
After his death the Army paid his father £1 18s 8d but his service did not qualify for a war gratuity.
Leonard appears to buried with his parents in the family grave (not CWGC). His part of the inscription reads:
ALSO OF [LEONARD] BORN DEC. 16 1883. DIED SCP.?. 1916 NEW PARAGRAPH THY WILL BE DONE
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Tanya Britton, Brian Thomson, Croxley Green in the First World War Rickmansworth Historical Society 2014
