Matlock – St. Giles’s Church (Edward John Loverock)

Edward John Loverock was born in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, in 1922, the son of Frederick Loverock and Mabel Victoria Jubilee Loverock (nee Bagshaw), who later moved to Matlock.

He joined the 61st Squadron of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as an air gunner, service number 950159. This was a bomber squadron which launched several attacks on targets in Germany. Edward was trained in an Avro Lancaster Mk I aircraft and he would have been based at RAF Syerston, near to Newark in Nottinghamshire.

Edward died on 18 February 1943, at the age of just 21. A night-time training flight in the Lancaster went wrong and the engines caught fire, causing the aircraft to crash with all seven men killed. The crash site was near to Staunton-in-the-Vale in Lincolnshire and there is a memorial at St. Mary’s Church in the village to commemorate the seven men who died.

The inscription on Edward’s grave reads:

“You did your duty, your life you gave. You rest with many who died to save”.