Awcock, Herbert Stanley

Herbert Stanley Awcock was born on 9 May 1898 to Denis Awcock, a farmer, and his wife Laura in Dane Hill, Sussex, United Kingdom. The family emigrated to Canada in 1914 and lived at 26 Langevin Avenue, Ottawa, at the time of Herbert’s enlistment.

Herbert enlisted in the 207th Battalion in Ottawa on 9 June 1916, only a month after his 18th birthday. He listed his mother as his next of kin and his occupation as a gardener working for an Ottawa florist. During training in Amherst, Nova Scotia, in March 1917, he caught scarlet fever. Nevertheless, he shipped out to the United Kingdom on the SS Olympic on 2 June 1917 arriving a week later to join the 7th Reserve Battalion. Almost immediately he was examined by a medical board and diagnosed with Valvular Disease of the Heart (VDH) and classified as fit for sedentary work only. He returned to Canada on the SS Megantic arriving in Halifax 24 August 1917. He was discharged at Kingston 30 November 1917 as medically unfit.

Awcock went back to live with his mother in Ottawa, resuming his career as a florist. On 9 October 1922 he married Elizabeth Mclean and the 1957 voters’ list show him working in Ottawa, still as a florist. By 1968 he had retired but was still in Ottawa living with his wife and a daughter. He died in 1991 and is buried in the Pinecrest Cemetery in Ottawa.