Cecil Francis Bate

Sergeant, 46^th Squadron, Royal Air Force

Age 11, Class II Upper: ‘Very good worker, requires sharp watch to prevent talking and playing.’

Cecil Francis Bate was a student at Alleyn’s School from 1902 to July 1904. At the time, he lived at 7 Gowlett Road, E. Dulwich with his father, Francis Herbert, his mother, Ellen Louise and his sister. After leaving Alleyn’s, age 12, he attended Cranleigh School in Surrey.

During World War One, Bate was a Sergeant in the Royal Air Force. The enemy was not the only danger faced in 1918. The first wave of Spanish Flu had been noted in the trenches in Spring 1918 where it was known as 'la grippe'. It spread quickly. Bate died in Lilliers, France, on the 10th July 1918 of pneumonia, brought on by flu, age 26.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission states he is buried in Aire Communal Cemetery in Pas de Calais and the inscription on his headstone reads: ‘Always in the thoughts of his sorrowing mother, father and sister’.