203199 Pte David Edmund Elijah Benifer, 1st Bn, London Regiment

203199 Pte David Edmund Elija Benifer of the 1st Battalion, The London Regiment was killed in action on 14th September 1917. He was one of 241 soldiers to die on this day in 1917 and one of 24 men from the 1st (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers).

According to Soldiers Died in The Great War, David's residence was in Chelsea and he enlisted in West London (probably also Chelsea). No service record survives for him but his medal card indicates that he was entitled to the British War and Victory Medals and therefore arrived overseas no earlier than 1st January 1916. His number indicates that he probably joined up around April 1916. There is a note on the reverse of his medal card that "O[fficer] i[n] c[harge of] London rec[ords] requests instruction re disposal of medals."

David Benifer was born in London in 1898, his birth registered in the September quarter of that year. He was the son of Elijah and Mary Benifer and appears on the 1901 census living at No. 60 Sheepcote Lane in Battersea with his parents and one year old sister Gwendoline. Elijah Benifer, born in King's Lynn, Norfolk and aged 32, is recorded as an assistant horse keeper. His wife, aged 40, was born in Dowlais, South Wales. Both the children were born in Battersea.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission holds no additional information about this man but he does at least have a last resting place. He was killed in the desperate fighting around Ypres in what would later be known as the Third Battle of Ypres, or simply "Passchendaele" and is one of 3588 men buried in the cemetery at Tyne Cot. David would have been 18 or 19 years old when he was killed.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry.co.uk (MIC, Free BMD Birth Index, 1901 Census)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission