Category: Military
Rank: Private 19257
Regiment or Ship: 2nd Bn East Ontario Regiment
Service Number(s): 19257
Occupation: Bank Clerk ((Service record)
Date of Birth: 25.10.1895
Place of Birth: 15 Portland Square, Plymouth
Date of Death: 10.07.1916
Place of Death: Near the Somme in heavy fighting for Mount Sorrel
Place of Burial / Memorials:
Buried in Woods Cemetery, Ypres, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. Remembered on Bexhill War Memorial.
Address: 34 Holliers Hill (Service record), Bexhill
Photos and newspaper articles
Click on any image to see a larger version
Family Information
Parents:
Henry William Mayne, a dentist and Edith Everard Mayne (née Row). Married in Stoke Damerel, in 1884.
Siblings:
Norah Delarue (Step-sister from mother’s first marriage)
Leliah Delarue (Step-sister from mother’s first marriage)
Conrad Delarue (Step-brother from mother’s first marriage)
Merton Henry B. Mayne born Plymouth, in 1886 8
Eva Dorothy A B Mayne, born Plymouth, in 1888
Hilda St.Hilary E. E. Mayne , born Plymouth, 1890
First World War Experience
Leonard, on a trip to Canada, decided to enlist with the Canadian Infantry when war broke out and signed his Attestation Papers on 23rd September, 1914. Such was his enthusiasm to join that he altered his birth date from 1895 to 1893. He passed his medical on the same date and is described as 5ft 10 inches tall with brown hair and eyes and a light brown complexion.
He was posted to the front in April 1915 as a machine gunner and wrote regular letters to his mother. Edith, back home, noted in her bible on 24th February, he had sent photos of himself in his army uniform. On 11th May he wrote saying he was 4 miles from Ypres; on 14th May he was at Ypres; 31st October 1915 he wrote to her from Belgium. He sent her a card on 4th June 1916. Tragically his last letter arrived on the day of his death, the last of Edith’s three sons to predecease her and the youngest of her seven children.
The whole gun crew were wiped out on Monday 10th July 1916 in a battle near the Somme in heavy fighting for Mount Sorrel, shortly before he was to be promoted to Lance Corporal. The regiment’s war diary says”Weather hot. Artillery quiet. Difficulty keeping up communications owing to enemy snipers”. He is buried in Woods Cemetery near the village of Marcelcave which was only taken by the Canadian Corps on 8th August 1918. The cemetery was made by them later that month with the bodies buried of 9 British and 41 Canadians.
Additional Information
Leonard was born at 15 Portland Square, Plymouth, the youngest son of Henry William Mayne, a dentist, and his wife, Edith Everard Mayne (nee Row). He attended Clarendon College school in Plymouth before his family moved, on the death of his father, to no. 34 (later named Conmer after the death of Edith’s two other sons – Conrad and Merton, one to cholera and one to typhoid) Holliers Hill, Bexhill. He then attended Holmwood School.
He had two sisters, Eva and Hilda, and a brother Merton, and a step-brother Conrad and step sisters Norah and Leila, children from his mother’s first marriage to Prosper Delarue. They appeared to be a very close family judging by the correspondence between them all.
Leila moved to Canada where she married Mr Edmonds and various members of the family seemed to visit her often in Edmonton, Alberta, especially after the birth of her two children Joy and Delarue (Del).