MOTHER DEAREST CHILD
WIDOW'S DEVOTED ONLY CHILD

LANCE CORPORAL CYRIL DAVID BOSTON

ESSEX REGIMENT

21ST SEPTEMBER 1918 AGE 19

BURIED: UNICORN CEMETERY, VENDHUILE, FRANCE


Mrs Mary Boston had four children but David Cyril was the only one who survived. In the 1891 Census her husband, David, is a waiter and she has a four month old baby, Arthur. I can't find the family in the 1901 Census and by 1911, David is an invalid, Mary is an office cleaner, and eleven-year-old Cyril David is a schoolboy. The family live in Dacre Chambers, Strutton Ground, charity housing in an impoverished area of Westminster. By the time Mrs Boston came to compose a personal inscription for her son, she was a widow.