LANCE SERJEANT PERCY WILLIAM STAUNTON
RIFLE BRIGADE
6TH JULY 1918 AGE 20
BURIED: BROOKWOOD MILITARY CEMETERY, UK
The acceptance of fate comes in many forms. Previous epitaphs have been 'Kismet', 'Thy will be done' and 'Whatever is is best', but this is different. The inscription is signed Dad, Staunton's mother was dead, and Dad is tantamount to welcoming his son's death: 'Twas for the best'.
There's no indication what Percy Staunton's injuries were but the word his father used is 'disfigured' not wounded and that implies facial injuries. We don't need to imagine what this might mean, the work of Henry Tonks shows us only too clearly what some men suffered. Tonks, a surgeon and an artist, worked with the plastic surgeon Harold Gillies drawing soldiers' facial injuries that were both deeply humane and unsparing in their detail.
Staunton is buried in Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, where the London hospitals buried their dead. He may well have been one of Gillies' patients.
[With thanks to Dr Andrew Bamji, Gillies Archivist, Royal College of Surgeons - site currently being rebuilt]