BINGHAM Cecil Henry

Appears on the Army casualties list for Worcestershire.

Berrow’s Worcester Journal, Saturday 30th September 1944:
LATE REV. C.H. Bingham
Memorial Service at Pershore Abbey
A Requiem and memorial service for Capt. the Rev. Cecil Henry Bingham, Chaplain to the Forces, who was fatally wounded in Italy, were held in Pershore Abbey on Tuesday. Mr Bingham was formerly on the staff of the Abbey and Curate of Wick. The memorial service was conducted by the Vicar and Rural Dean (Rev. Lancelot G. Bark), assisted by the Rev. T.H. Callender. The congregation included: [a list of names is given along with the hymns sung and music played by the Abbey Organist, Mr Charles Mason.
The Vicar spoke of Capt. Bingham’s exceptional abilities and wide interests. He referred also to Mr Bingham’s work as resident chaplain at Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, to which he went when he left Pershore-a training, the Vicar said, which must have stood him in good stead in these latter years, when he was called to bring succour and relief on battlefields. It was what they would have expected from his brave and eager disposition, that when he accepted the call to serve in the Forces, he should choose the most difficult and perilous work of all – a chaplain in the paratroops.
Captain Bingham was the son of the late Mr J.H. Bingham and of Mrs Bingham, of “Benmuir”, Chequer Hill, Newry, and graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. He was ordained in 1933 to Waterford Cathedral, and two years later joined the clerical staff at Pershore Abbey under the then Vicar, Dr. R.H. Murrey, and was appointed Curate at Wick, succeeding the Rev. Gilbert Pawson.
He was an active member of Pershore Hockey Club and of Pinvin Dramatic Society. He was superintendent of the Abbey Sunday School, responsible for the successful running of the Abbey Boys’ Club, and the first secretary of Pershore Youth Fellowship. He also took part, with the Rev. Trevor Morgans, Vicar of Stoulton, in the organisation of the beautiful Nativity play given in the Abbey.
The report includes a photograph of the Rev. C.H. Bingham.