Henry Robert Maynard was born in 1886 in East Witton, Yorkshire, the eldest of the three children of Henry Robert Maynard (1852-1933) and Anne Matilda Maynard née Horne (1858-1925). His birth was registered in the 3rd quarter of 1886 in the Leyburn registration district, North Yorkshire. He was baptised on 8 August 1866 in East Witton parish church where the baptismal register confirms that the family lived in East Witton and that his father was described as a merchant.
In the 1891 census he is shown as living in Adam & Eve Street, Market Harborough, Leicestershire, with his parents and his two sisters: Edith Mary Maynard (1888-1962) and Marjorie Kathleen Maynard (1891-1959), together with two female domestic servants. His father was listed as a chemist.
When the 1901 census was taken he was living at 56 Boston Road, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, with his parents, his two sisters and a female general domestic servant. His father was still described as a chemist. The 1911 census returns show that whilst his family were living at 1 Stanhope Villas, Horncastle, he was listed as a dispensing chemist's assistant, boarding at 31 Garfield Road, Lavender Hill, Battersea, the home a widow called Mrs Laura Marian Hillman (1866-1949).
In August 1914 he enlisted in Hull, Yorkshire, as a Private in the East Riding of Yorkshire Yeomanry, service number 1799 and landed in Egypt on 21 November 1915, later transferring into the Imperial Camel Corps, service number 50601. He died, aged 31 years, on 27 March 1918 in the Battalion's 10th Company and his body was buried in Plot F.15 in the Damascus British War Cemetery, Syria. Although it is recorded on his medal records that he was killed in action, a relative on ancestry.co.uk relates that he was in Jerusalem when a side of beef fell out of a lorry injuring him and the ambulance in which he was being taken to hospital was bombed and he was killed.
By 10 January 1919 his army effects totalling £14-12-3d had been sent to his father who was also sent his £15-10s-0d war gratuity on 27 November 1919. He was posthumously awarded the 1914-1915 Star, the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal.
He is shown as part of the British Contingent, 2nd Battalion and listed as Cpl. H. R. Maynard on the Imperial Camel Corps memorial in Embankment Gardens, Victoria Embankment, Westminster. He is also commemorated on his parent's gravestone in Horncastle Cemetery, Boston Road, Horncastle, LN9 6HU, on a plaque at the Horncastle War Memorial Centre within the Horncastle War Memorial Hospital, North Street, Horncastle, LN9 5DX, on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's website and the Imperial War Museum's Lives of the First World War website.
Credit for this entry to: Andrew Behan.
