Captain Esmé Chinnery (28 March 1886 – 18 January 1915) was an English soldier and aviator. He played one first-class cricket match for Surrey in 1906.[1] He was killed in an aircraft accident during World War I.[2]
Personal information | |
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Full name | Esme Fairfax Chinnery |
Born | (1886-03-28)28 March 1886 Cobham, Surrey |
Died | 18 January 1915(1915-01-18) (aged 28) Issy, Paris, France |
Source: Cricinfo, 12 March 2017 |
After school, Chinnery went up to Brasenose College in the University of Oxford. Whilst at Oxford he became a Freemason in the Apollo University Lodge, a Masonic lodge for students and former students of the university.[3]: 37 [4] He played cricket at university, and whilst still an undergraduate he was selected to play in the first team for Surrey County Cricket Club.
Chinnery was commissioned as a Coldstream Guards officer in 1910 and was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps in 1913. He obtained his aviators certificate at Brooklands Aerodrome on 30 April 1912, flying a Deperdussin Monoplane.[5]
Chinnery was flying as a passenger in a Voisin biplane when the aircraft broke up and both he and the pilot fell to earth, Chinnery died and the French aviator Laporte died later in hospital. Following his death a memorial service was held at the Embassy Church in Paris and his body was repatriated to England for a military funeral, and burial in his family's plot at St. Matthew Church at Hatchford in Surrey.[6]