Rank:
Private
Service No(s):
S/6806
Regiment:
Middlesex Regiment
Unit:
3rd Battalion
Returned:
No
Place of birth:
Islington, Middlesex
Occupation:
Florist
Date of death:
30/09/1915 Listed as 'missing' on the Casualty List issued by the War Office from 30th October 1915
Cause of death:
Killed in action
Grave or panel reference:
Panel 98 to 101
Name of father:
Den(n)is Keegan (sometimes Reegan)
Name of siblings:
Jane, Ellen, John, Mary, Fanny (later known as Frances)
Name(s) of children:
Died:
Yes
Date of birth:
Place of enlistment:
Event:
France and Flanders
Age at death:
20
Cemetery or memorial:
Loos Memorial, France
Other memorial:
Name of mother:
Annie Keegan
Name of spouse:
Address:
84 Campbell Road
Biography:
We have been unable to find records for anyone by the name of Dennis Kegan who died in the First World War, however we have found details of Private Dennis Keegan, service number S/6806 who served in the 3rd Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment. War records state that this Dennis Keegan was living in Mill Hill and was born in Islington. It seems likely that this is our soldier Denis Kegan.
In 1911, Dennis Keegan (then aged 17 years old) appears to have been a florist (though the transcription is difficult to decipher) living at 84 Campbell Road with his widowed father Dennis Keegan senior, his older sister Frances (Franny on previous census documents), a young lodger and Dennis senior’s elderly step-father. Dennis Keegan father was a ‘General Dealer’. His mother Annie appears to have died between 1901 and 1911.
Campbell Road (since 1937 Whadcoat Street) was a notorious slum, known locally as ‘Campbell Bunk’ from the number of furnished rooms and lodging houses it contained. The historian Jerry White described it as ‘the worst street in north London.’ The New Court Congregational Church had a mission house just around the corner on Lennox Road. Archive paperwork detailing the text for the plaques has a symbol etched in pencil next to some of the names which suggests that these men were connected to the mission house rather than the church. Dennis Kegan’s name is one of those marked in this way.
We don’t know when or where Dennis Keegan enlisted, but his Medal Rolls Index Card shows that he landed in Le Havre on 26th January 1915. He was listed as ‘missing’ on the Casualty List issued by the War Office from 30th October 1915. The Commonweath War Graves Commission states that he was ‘killed in action’ on 30th September 1915. The Loos Memorial, which commemorates Dennis, remembers more than 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Battle of Loos and have no known grave.
Records show that two of Dennis’ sisters, Mary and Frances, married at St Anne’s Church, Pooles Park, very close to the New Court Congregational Church just a few years before the First World War broke out.
Also see ‘Meet the Soldier: Campbell Bunk Soldiers’ blog post.