About the product

1915 Trio Argentinian Family aged 16 Underage Soldier

1914-15 Star Trio, Pte later Lt Eric Ewart Cassini, Middlesex Regiment, underage soldier in WW1 who was only 16, later commissioned Tank Corps 1919. From an Argentinian-British Family.

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SKU: J7504 Category:
Origin: United Kingdom
Nearly Extremely Fine

Description

1914-15 Star Trio, 10-3037 Private later Lieut Eric Ewart Cassini, Middlesex Regiment, Commissioned into the Tank Corps during 1919 as a Lt and returned for WW2 as Lt in the King’s Own Regiment.

 

Trio all named as Private in the Middlesex Regiment, number 3037 (10-3037 on Star).

 

A rather unusual name to find, Cassini was a British-Argentinian Family,

 

Eric Ewart Cassini was born in Liverpool, Lancashire on 21st October 1898.

 

Aged only a few months old he was taken by ship back to his family’s home in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 28th April 1899, on board the Royston Grange, possibly taken by his parents to show the Newborn Baby to his family there.

 

His older brother Hubert Dominic Cassini had been born in Buenos Aires during 1897.

 

By 1911 he was living in St Leonards on Sea in Sussex.

 

When the 1st World War began he enlisted with the Middlesex Regiment for service, he was however at the time he was recorded as arriving in Salonika for service, aged just 16 years old, it appears that he like many other young men had lied about his age to join the fight a few years early.

 

Pte Cassini was shown in training during March 1915 with 10th Reserve Battalion Middlesex Regiment when he took part in some team races, noted in the Windsor and Eton Express 6th March 1915.

 

He arrived in the “Balkans” theatre on 9th August 1915.

 

At the time the 3rd Battalion Duke of Cambridge’s Own Middlesex Regiment had been posted to Salonika to form part of the 85th Infantry Brigade, 28th Division.

 

During their time in Salonika they were in action in the occupation of Mazirko and the Capture of Barakli Jum’a in late 1915.
In 1917 they were later involved in the capture of Ferdie and Essex Trenches (Near Barakli Jum’a) later capturing Barakli and Kumli.

 

Having been disembodied after the end of the war, Cassini then got himself a commission in the new Tank Corps announced in the London Gazette, 28th March 1919, on the list of Cadets to be Temporary 2nd Lieutenants in the Tank Corps, dated 6th March 1919.

 

When WW2 began, Cassini was again granted an Emergency Commission, with the Royal Regiment of Artillery as a 2nd Lieutenant, dated 6th September 1940.

 

He then would join the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in 1941 and is shown on their Army Lists for 1941 through to 1945 as 2nd Lieutenant.

 

From around 1939 onwards he was living in Hinckley, Leicestershire where he ran the Hinckley Knight Hotel.