They also served

¬ GRIFFIN, JAMES - died 9th June 1849
At Bourne, Mr James Griffin, aged 67, formerly a sergeant in the 3rd Dragoon Guards, and with that regiment during the Peninsular War. - public notice from the Stamford Mercury, Friday 15th June 1849.

¬ DEATH OF A BOURNE MAN AT SUAKIM (EGYPT). - We regret to announce that tidings have lately come to hand of the death, in Suakim, of L J Blades, son of Mr John Blades, a platelayer in the service of the Great Northern Railway Company, Bourne. Blades was a private in the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, and servant to Lieutenant A Crawley, both of whom left England in HM Troopship Australia, in February last for the Sudan, in connection with the late war; and after having passed through many engagements, Blades was ordered back with the rest of his battalion to Suakim, where he was stricken with fever, sent on board the hospital ship Ganges, and died on May 22nd. Blades had always made it the practice of writing to his friends every month, and as they failed to receive any tidings of his whereabouts, they communicated with the War Office, and there learnt that he had died on the date named. Since then, several letters have been received by the friends of the deceased, through Lieutenant Crawley, who speaks of the brilliant manner in which Blades performed his duties as a soldier while under his command, and the sorrow felt at losing such a trusty servant. Blades was, no doubt, well known by a great number of the inhabitants of Bourne during the time he lived here. - news report from the Grantham Journal, Saturday 12th September 1885.

¬ A brass plate in the nave of the Abbey Church commemorates the death of a Bourne lad in South Africa during the Boer Wars of 1899-1903. He was Private Bennett Rodgers, son of Mr and Mrs John Rodgers, of Eastgate, who was serving with the Volunteer section of the 2nd Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment, who died of enteric fever at Reitfontein on 23rd February 1901. The captain commanding the 2nd Battalion wrote a letter of sympathy to his parents on the loss of their son and praised the young volunteer's conduct, "He stuck to his duty until compelled by fever to fall out of the line of march", he wrote. "He was buried in Reitfontein cemetery, a small cross being erected by the regiment over his grave. The hospitals here are now well manned and equipped and you may rest assured that your son received every attention so far as medical skill is concerned, and every comfort." The memorial in the church that records his death bears the inscription: "This tablet is erected by his comrades of H Company. Laus Deo."

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