Briginshaw, HWO

Lieutenant Henry William Oswald Briginshaw

Oswald was born on November 14^th 1875, the second child of salesman Henry Vincent Briginshaw and his wife Jane. After he had left Dulwich he joined the West Kent Yeomanry, and went on to serve in the Boer War, notably including being present at Paardeberg when the Boer General Cronje was captured. He distinguished himself enough in South Africa to be offered a commission once peace came, he turned this down however, preferring to return home in order to found a business selling meat to and from the Colonies. In 1908 he married Mildred Hartridge, a woman over a decade his junior.

Upon the commencement of war in 1914 he was once more asked if he would be interested in taking up a commission, and once more refused, a steadfastness he was to maintain until the summer of 1916. At this point he took what was originally supposed to be a temporary commission, as a Lieutenant working with the Royal Army Service Corps in Dublin; it was a position he was to hold for the rest of the War. When Armistice was declared on November 11^th 1918 Oswald was already ill in hospital with pneumonia, from which he would unfortunately pass away on the 30^th in King Edward VI Military Hospital. He was survived by his widow Mildred and their two children.