Two of the names on the Roll of Honour in the yew tree at the entrance to St. Mary’s Churchyard in Nonington are those of Captain Eric Penn and Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Mark Penn, brothers who were both killed in action during 1915.
The Roll of Honour was presented by Mrs. Gladys Penn, the widow of Captain Penn, on 23rd May, 1917. William and Constance Penn, the parents of the two brothers, were at that time the tenants at St. Alban’s Court, Nonington, which was owned by Captain Egerton Hammond.
The Penn family business had been John Penn and Sons, an English engineering company founded at Greenwich in London in 1799. The company began manufacturing marine steam engines in 1825 and from the mid-19th onwards the company was considered to have the best-equipped marine engineering works and it grew size in response to the demands of the Royal Navy and mercantile shipping owners. In 1899 the company merged with Thames Ironworks & Shipbuilding Co., but unavoidable changes in the Thames shipbuilding industry resulted in the company’s closure in 1914.
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Captain Eric Frank Penn of The Grenadier Guards
Captain Eric Frank Penn [17th April, 1878 – 18th October, 1915] of the Grenadier Guards, was killed at the age of 37 when a shell fell on his dug-out opposite the Hohenzollern Redoubt at Auchy-les-Mines near Loos-en-Gohelle in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France on 18th October, 1915, during the Battle of Loos.
Captain Penn is buried or commemorated at Vermelles British Cemetery.
Grave reference I.K. 11.
Captain Penn’s Wikipedia entry is worth looking at as it records his career as a cricketeer which included playing for Cambridge University and the M.C.C. William Penn, the Captain’s father, had himself played for Kent County Cricket Club in the 1870s.
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Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Mark Penn of the The Rifle Brigade
Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Mark Penn [20th April, 1886-11th February, 1915] of the 6th Battalion (Reserve) of The Rifle Brigade, was the youngest brother of Eric Penn. Geoffrey was aged 28 when he was killed instantaneously by a German sniper on 11th February, 1915, whilst directing trench work near Ploegsteert [Plugstreet] in Flanders when attached to 1st Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. He is buried in the Rifle House Cemetery at Ploegsteert in Belgium.
Grave reference IV.H.6.
Geoffrey Peen had been educated at Eton and Trinity College, Oxford, before going to the South East Agricultural College in Wye in Kent from 1910 to 1912.
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The third brother, Arthur Horace Penn, mentioned as recovering from wounds received on active service with the Grenadier Guards in Captain Penn’s obituary, survived the war and went on to have a distinguished career in the army and in Royal service.
