Eric was born in Wolverhampton in 1897, the son of William Edwin and Leonora Grosvenor. In 1901 they were living at 354 Dudley Road, Wolverhampton. At some point after this, before 1911, the family emigrated to Australia.

In August 1915, Eric enlisted in the 5th Battalion of the Australian Pioneers (service number 1876), when he was living in Adelaide. Unfortunately died of heart failure on 23 March 1917 while on military service in France. It was stated by his Commanding Officer that he was “keen at his work and very popular with his fellow men”. His papers include witness statement concerning the circumstances surrounding his death, which occurred after the Germans evacuated:

Grosvenor went looking for some souvenirs at lunch time and was found later in one of the deep dug-outs ill. I went down and found the lad nearly dead. We got him up and started rubbing him, and under the Col’s direction kept on for two hours. Then a doctor came, but he was dead.

He was found alongside a jar of rum, and this was blamed for his death, as some suspected it was poisoned. However, some of the other soldiers had also drunk from it with no ill effects. He was initially buried on the day he died, but was exhumed the next day so that a post mortem could be carried out. This found that he died of valvular disease with hypertrophy of the left cardia. He was buried in the Bernafay Wood British Cemetery in Montauban in France.

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The research for this blog post was carried out by remote virtual volunteer, Jacky de Escofet.