In the sprawling Streatham Park Cemetery, Surrey, is a headstone dedicated to Lieutenant WR Fairbairn of the East Surrey Regiment, who died on 12th January 1917, at the age of 56.
There is frustratingly little information available about Lieutenant Fairbairn. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records confirm his widow as Mrs F Fairbairn, of 35 Egerton Road, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, but this was a boarding house and the couple were not resident there at the time of the 1911 census.
Without a confirmed first name, or place of birth, it isn’t possible to track down baptism or parental records, and Lieutenant Fairbairn’s name does not appear in contemporary newspaper reports.
As a commissioned officer, standard military records do not exist, and with no service number available, his time with the East Surrey Regiment is a mystery.
One document gives a tiny insight into Lieutenant Fairbairn’s life: the Hospital Registers for 1914-1919 confirms that he was admitted to the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital on Millbank, Westminster, on 12th December 1916. While the document doesn’t confirm his first name, it does show that he had been in the army for some 41 years, which might explain his absence from any census records. Now attached to the 21st Training Reserve, he was suffering from chronic bronchitis and nephritis.
Lieutenant Fairbairn was discharged from hospital on 6th January 1917, and for the next six days his trail goes cold. Whether he was sent to Streatham to recuperate, or whether he was based there with his wife is unclear.
Either way, Lieutenant WR Fairbairn passed away on 12th January 1917, ad the age of 56 years old. He was buried in Streatham Park Cemetery, taking the details of much of his life with him.
