Born on 16th November 1881 at Epping, Benjamin was the son of George (Gardener) and Caroline Lawrence. In the 1891 census he is recorded as being with his parents at Long Lane, Stifford, Essex. In 1905 he married Amy Charlotte Page of Woodford, and for a time they lived at Woodford Bridge and Woodford, where his two children Benjamin and Amy were born. In 1911 the family had moved and he was a Jobbing Gardener, living with his wife and children at London Road, Wickford, Essex.
He does not appear in the 1901 Census. His service with the Royal Naval Reserve during the Great War, and continuing in 1919, suggests that he may have been in the Regular Royal Navy when the 1901 Census was taken. He qualified for the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
While serving as a Stoker on the Minesweeper HMS “Whitby Abbey”, he died from illness in the Naval Hospital Haslar at Gosport, possibly a victim of the Spanish Flu Pandemic.
His widow Amy was living at 35 Ray Lodge Road, Woodford Green, which accounts for his name being on this memorial at St Barnabas Church.
Research by Adrian Lee, Local Historian
Sources:
Ancestry.com