In Memory Of

SHENNAN, JOHN ERIC

Service Details
Age:
 31
Date of Birth:
 1887-07-21
Rank:
 Captain
Unit:
 Supplies
Regiment:
 South African Service Corps
Date of Death:
 1918-11-25
Cause of Death:
 Died of malaria
Commemoration
Grave Reference:
 Gen. Sec. Grave 4780.
Cemetery:
 JOHANNESBURG (BRIXTON) CEMETERY
Localitly:
 Gauteng
Country:
 South Africa
Additional Information
Citations:
 ***Not yet accepted for War Grave Status by CWGC, need service file
Son of Mr. and Mrs. James William Shennan (a Master of the Edinburgh Merchant Company), of Hermitage, Warden Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland. Born at Edinburgh, Scotland. Educated at Edinburgh University, reading Law and forming part of the University’s 1st XI, he became a chartered accountant in 1912 and moved to South Africa to work for the firm of Howard, Pim & Hardy in Johannesburg. On the outbreak of war he joined up and received a commission as Lieutenant in November 1914 with the South African Service Corps. He took part in the action against a Boer rebellion in 1914-15 and was then in the fighting in German South-West Africa which ended in July 1915. He afterwards fought in the East Africa campaign and was promoted to Captain in 1917. Fighting in the tropics took a toll on his health, which had not been good even before the war, and he was invalided back to South Africa with malaria in the summer of 1918. He survived a bout of influenza but finally succumbed to malaria on 28 November 1918, the day German forces surrendered in East Africa.