Remembering Eric Hardwick Tayler
Born: Unknown date in Auckland, New Zealand.
Died: 9th Febuary 1915 Hazebrouck, France. Died of sickness, aged 22.
Buried: Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, Nord, France.
Eric Hardwick Tayler was born in Auckland and attended Auckland Grammar School from 1907. He was enrolled as a student at St. John’s Theological College between 1910 and 1913, after which he was enrolled at Auckland University College.
During this time he had achieved the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the Territorial Force, 3rd (Auckland) Regiment. Shortly before the outbreak of the War, Tayler applied for and was commissioned into the York and Lancaster Regiment in the British Imperial Army who were stationed in India at the time. After the war broke out he was sent to the front line in France. He was there a total of two short weeks in 1915 before he succumbed to pneumonia at an army base hospital.
100th Anniversary Display Note
To mark the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli an exhibition was held at the John Kinder Theological Library displaying books and archives, as well as biographies of the St John’s Theological College students who served and were killed during World War One.
These biographies will be posted on this blog over the next week including some significant discoveries we have made while researching these students.