Week 21 - Francis William Crane

[Merry]

Francis Crane was born in Leicester in August 1897. He was the only son of Herbert Bartram Crane, a commercial clerk, and Mary Ann, nee Desborough.

On 23 Oct 1915 Francis joined the Durham Light Infantry, stating his age as 19 years 87 days. I think he was actually 18 years and 76 days. He passed through several training and reserve battalions eventually ending up with the 20th battalion of the Durham Light Infantry.

Francis survived the war, but died on 25 Nov 1918.

Before burial, a post mortem was carried out on his body at 2pm on 28 Nov 1918 and the full details are included in his Service Papers. Basically he had a healthy heart, liver, kidneys, brain etc etc, no fractures, lacerations or bruising or any other sign of external violence and no alcohol in his system - the body was described as that of a well developed muscular man aged between 20 and 30 (he was 21). However, they did find that his bowel was badly distended and contained large amounts of blood. The conclusion states "In my opinion death was due to acute toxaemia as evidenced by acute inflammatory changes in gastro-intestinal tract".

Francis was buried at Halle Communal Cemetery, Vlaams-Brabant, Belgium.