6th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment
Gilbert Charles Hunt was born in Leckhampton in the third quarter of 1898. He was the second son of Thomas and Clara Emily Hunt who, at the time of the 1911 Census lived at Crook Cottage, Old Bath Road, Cheltenham. When the CWGC register was compiled they lived at 2 Mapledene Cottages, Naunton Lane, Cheltenham.
Prior to the war Gilbert was a member of Cheltenham Scouts, the Church Lads Brigade and Leckhampton Choir for four years, later working for the Midland Railway Company at Redditch, where he later enlisted on 26 February 1917 in ‘M’ Company of the 6th Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment. He died of meningitis at Devonport Military Hospital less than two months later on 12 April 1917, age 18.
Private Hunt’s grave in Leckhampton (St Peter) Churchyard is marked by a standard CWGC headstone and he is commemorated on the Cheltenham War Memorial, the Leckhampton village memorial and that in St Luke’s Church (St Luke’s Road).
A photograph of him appeared in The Graphic of 5 May 1917.
GRA
21 March 2013
Acknowledgement to Leaving all that was dear –
Cheltenham and the Great War by Joe Devereux and Graham Sacker