Stephen Cheston

Stephen Cheston was born in Esh in the third quarter of 1888. He was the youngest of five children, all boys, to parents Thomas and Mary. By the end of the year his father had died, the death being registered in Lanchester. Stephen’s mother married Peter Tighe in the latter months of 1889. In 1891 the family, which now included a stepsister, Hannah, were living at 14, The Huts, in the parish of St. John’s, Hamsteels. In 1901 they lived at 17 Church Street, Quebec, by which time Peter and Mary had had another daughter.

Stephen Cheston married Margaret McCormick in late 1907, and had a child Stephen born and died 1910. The 1911 census suggests that Stephen married Margaret in 1910 but there is only one marriage for a Stephen Cheston. Stephen and Margaret, lived with Margaret’s mother at 93, Framwellgate and Stephen was employed as a Coal Miner Putter Underground.

Stephen enlisted at Stanley 27th November 1914. He served first in the East Yorkshire Regiment as Private 15859 and later as Private 134990 in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was discharged because of wounds and died at the end of 1920 at the Pensions Hospital, Elisabethville, Birtley. At the time he was a miner and resident at Malton Colliery.

He and Margaret by then had other children Margaret born 1911, Albert born 1914 and James born 29th December 1920 not long after his father's death. Margaret Cheston married Thomas Walton in late 1922 and was living in 1939 with husband Thomas and son James Cheston at College View, Brandon and Byshottles.

Two of Stephen’s brothers served in the War. Thomas served in the East Yorkshire Regiment and died of wounds. George served first in the DLI then later in the Machine Gun Corps. He survived the war but his son, Thomas was drowned at sea in the Second World War while serving with the Royal Marines.

Acknowledgements: Kevin Cheston

Stephen Cheston is remembered at Lanchester on L62.01