The history of the Burwell family is here
We know very little about Edward Proctor. The only two ‘sightings’ of him are in post war records. From these we can be reasonably sure that Edward Proctor served with the 25th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. This Battalion was raised early in 1915 by the Legion of Frontiersmen[1] in London and would have been attractive to Edward who was an adventurer. He had travelled to Australia in December 1911 but returned on the outbreak of war and enlisted in March 1915.
Within a month he had left the UK for East Africa. A month later, the battalion landed at Mombasa and joined others defending British colonies from German colonial raids that were mostly focused in the areas around Lake Tanganyika. The battalion remained in Africa until May 1917. Edward was demobilised in March 1919 having served exactly four years with a note that he was ‘no longer physically fit for war service.’[2]
He has enlisted as a Private and may have been promoted to Acting Corporal by the ens of his service.
His experience of Kenya led him to leave England for Dar-es-Salam in 1926. He travelled from Southampton on a liner operated by the ‘Deutsche Ost – Afrika Linie’ and the passenger list records that he was (or intended to be) a planter and Kenya was his to be his permanent residence. But this ambition was not to be, as the inscription on his parents’ grave at Fulwood notes: Edward Proctor died in British East Africa 29th December 1927.
[1] A patriotic organisation formed in Britain in 1905 and designed to bolster the defensive capacity of the British Empire. Prompted by pre-war fears of a pending invasion of Britain, the organisation was founded on a romanticized conception of the “frontier” and imperial idealism, (Wikipedia) its members had ‘a strong ethos of loyalty, duty and service to Crown and Country (website of the Countess Mountbatten’s own Legion of Frontiersmen: http://cmolegionoffrontiersmen.info/)
[2] He applied for a Silver War Badge that was issued to men and women who were honourably discharged due to illness or injury during World War One. The records for the award provided the detail about his discharge.