THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY, 24 September 1914 – The first death of a member of the 14th Battalion occurred on September 24th, 1914. Private Harold Reese Longhurst was born in late 1893 in the district of Camberwell, London, and came to Canada sometime after 1911 where he found employment with the Union Bank’s branch in Montreal (now known as the Royal Bank of Canada) . There he enlisted with the 14th Battalion. He died of meningitis at the Military Hospital, Quebec on September 24, 1914, and was buried in Mount Hermon Cemetery, Quebec on September 28, the same day that the second and final contingent of the 14th Battalion left Valcartier by train for Quebec where they embarked on the S.S. Andania .
Longhurst apparently died before receiving a military service number and probably before he had a chance to complete his Attestation Papers, as none seems to be held in army records in Ottawa. His name appears on the first page of the Book of Remembrance for the First World War, Ottawa as “Pte. Longhurst, H. R., 14th Bn.”
[1] Burial Register, Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral, Quebec City, Sept 28, 1914