Heyes, Eric Joseph

Driver (Despatch Rider)

No. 2004479, 676 General Construction Company, Corps of Royal Engineers

Died as a result of an accident on Thursday 17 October 1940 (aged 23)

Buried:

St. Helens Cemetery, Lancashire, England (Section 30 Grave 106)

Commemorated

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

BIOGRAPHY

The death of Despatch Rider Eric Joseph Heyes (No. 2004479) on 17 October 1940 was reported in the 19 October 1940 edition of the Newtownards Chronicle.  In the newspaper report his surname was spelt Hayes.  A native of St. Helens in Lancashire, Despatch Rider Heyes was fatally injured in an accident at Kirkistown, Co. Down.  He was riding towards Mageean’s Corner and as he attempted to negotiate the bend he was thrown from his machine and crashed into a wall on the opposite side of the road.  He was taken to Ards District Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.  Coroner Dr R. A. McC. Wallace presided at an inquest which was held in the hospital the following day.  After hearing medical, police and witness testimonies the Coroner returned a verdict that death was due to laceration of the brain and shock following multiple injuries received when the deceased collided with a wall.

Despatch Rider Eric Joseph Heyes (No. 2004479) was 23 when he died and he was buried in St. Helens Cemetery, Lancashire.

There is evidence that Eric Joseph Heyes’s parents were Ernest and Marcella Heyes (nee McCoy) and that their marriage was registered in the fourth quarter of 1916 in Prescot, Lancashire.  Eric Joseph Heyes’s birth was registered there in the fourth quarter of 1917.