AIRCRAFT MECHANIC (FIRST CLASS) 31117 EDWARD LISTER, ROYAL FLYING CORPS.


AIRCRAFT MECHANIC (FIRST CLASS) 31117 EDWARD LISTER, ROYAL FLYING CORPS. DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES 26th JULY 1917 AGED 39

Grave in Ilkley Cemetery

Edward Lister was born in Ilkley in August 1877 one of six children of railway porter George Lister and his wife Sarah who lived on Brook Street. A plumber by trade Edward married Edith Asquith in 1900 and together set up home at 16 Leicester Crescent where they had two daughters.


Conscripted into the army in 1916 his previous experience probably explains Edwards deployment into the Royal Flying Corps as a mechanic. He never served overseas and instead was sent to RFC aerodrome at Wye in Kent where on the 26th July 1917 he suffered from what was diagnosed as an epileptic fit and died in hospital apparently from complications.

Edward's body was returned to his family in Ilkley and buried in the towns cemetery in a ceremony which appears not to have been reported by the Ilkley Gazette. His family chose not to have a War Graves Commision headstone but erected one of their own design which would later incorporate the name of his wife Edith upon her death in 1965. Edward Lister is also remembered on our war memorial in Ilkley







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