Esmé Chinnery

Captain Esmé Chinnery (28 March 1886 – 18 January 1915) was an English soldier and aviator. He played one first-class cricket match for Surrey in 1906.[1] He was killed in an aircraft accident during World War I.[2]

Esmé Chinnery
Personal information
Full nameEsme Fairfax Chinnery
Born(1886-03-28)28 March 1886
Cobham, Surrey
Died18 January 1915(1915-01-18) (aged 28)
Issy, Paris, France
Source: Cricinfo, 12 March 2017

Education and private life

After school Chinnery went up to Brasenose College in the University of Oxford. Whilst at Oxford he became a Freemason in the Apollo University Lodge, a Masonic lodge for students and former students of the university.[3]:37[4]

He played cricket at university, and whilst still an undergraduate he was selected to play in the first team for Surrey County Cricket Club.

Military career

Chinnery was commissioned as a Coldstream Guards officer in 1910 and was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in 1913. He obtained his aviators certificate at Brooklands Aerodrome on 30 April 1912 flying a Deperdussin Monoplane.[5]

Death

Chinnery was flying as a passenger in a Voisin biplane when the aircraft broke up and both he and the pilot fell to earth, Chinnery died and the French aviator Laporte died later in hospital.

Following his death a memorial service was held at the Embassy Church in Paris and his body was repatriated to England for a military funeral, and burial in his family's plot at St. Matthew Church at Hatchford in Surrey.[6]

See also

References
  1. "Esmé Chinnery". ESPN Cricinfo. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
  2. "Esme, Chinnery Fairfax". Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
  3. Jordan, Christopher, ed. (2015). WWI Remembered - Memories of and by Club Members (First ed.). London: Oxford and Cambridge Club.
  4. "WWI Remembered - Memories of and by Club Members" (PDF). London: Oxford and Cambridge Club. 2015. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  5. Royal Aero Club Aviators Certificate No. 210
  6. "page 8". Surrey Advertiser. 30 January 1915.
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