---
title: "Jersey WWI veteran given Canada’s last Great War state funeral"
url: https://www.nsfw.info/jersey-wwi-veteran-canadas-last-great-war-funeral/
published: 2026-11-11T11:30:57+00:00
modified: 2026-11-11T11:30:57+00:00
author: "Chief Editor"
categories: ["News"]
image: https://www.nsfw.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/jersey-wwi-veteran-canadas-last-great-war-funeral-1024x572.webp
summary: "A St Brelade-born WWI veteran, Edwin Le Rossignol, has received a full military burial in Quebec City in what is thought to be Canada's last Great War state fun"
publisher: NSFW (https://www.nsfw.info)
---

# Jersey WWI veteran given Canada’s last Great War state funeral

**In brief:** A St Brelade-born First World War veteran, Edwin Leigh Le Rossignol, has been given a full military burial in Quebec City, Canada, following a years-long international effort to identify and commemorate his remains. The ceremony, held on 15 October, is thought to be the last of its kind in Canada for a Great War veteran. A Jersey-born professor attended to represent the Island.

## From St Brelade to the Trenches of Belgium

Edwin Leigh Le Rossignol left Jersey to serve with the 60th Battalion Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, and his story is one that very nearly disappeared entirely from the historical record. He was wounded in action at Hooge during the Battle of Mont Sorrel in June 1916, and by February 1918 had been discharged as unfit for further war service. He never made it home in any meaningful sense. Falling victim to the influenza pandemic, he died at the age of just 27 in a remote Canadian town with no medical assistance available.

He was buried in a field in Quebec, and there he might have remained, forgotten, had it not been for a determined great-great-niece on the other side of the world and a Channel Islands historian with a knack for detective work.

## A Race Against the Sea and Against Time

Lara Pollard, based in Australia, joined forces with Jason Cronin, a historical researcher and member of the Channel Islands Great War Study Group, to locate her ancestor’s grave. With assistance from two Army veterans active on a local Facebook group, Mr Cronin established that Le Rossignol had been buried in a field in Quebec. The discovery carried an added urgency: the area where he lay was at risk of being swept out to sea by coastal erosion within as little as seven years.

Mr Cronin and Ms Pollard then worked together to have Le Rossignol recognised by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as Commonwealth War Dead, a status that opened the door to a proper, dignified reinterment. Their efforts culminated on 15 October, when Le Rossignol was interred at Mount Hermon Cemetery in Quebec City with full military honours. The ceremony was organised by Canada’s Department of National Defence and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and is thought to be the last funeral of its kind ever to be held in Canada for a First World War veteran.

## Jersey Represented at the Graveside

Among those attending the ceremony was Rob Whitley, a Jersey-born Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal. He told the Jersey Evening Post that he felt it was “particularly important that someone from the Island was there to pay their respects and honour Edwin’s memory, especially as he came from St Brelade, an area where I spent much of my youth as a pupil at Les Quennevais.”

Mr Whitley described the coffin, draped in the Canadian flag, being carried by soldiers of the Royal 22nd Regiment in full ceremonial uniform. The Minister of Veterans Affairs, Hon Jill McKnight, was among the senior dignitaries present. “The presence of senior dignitaries, including the Minister of Veterans Affairs, reflected the importance that Canada attached to the occasion,” Mr Whitley said.

He added that the speeches were “heartfelt and moving, rightly recognising his service, sacrifice and contribution to Canada,” and that “the sense of gratitude and remembrance was palpable.” Le Rossignol now rests at Mount Hermon Cemetery alongside soldiers and veterans of both World Wars.

## The NSFW Perspective

There is something quietly remarkable about this story. A young man from St Brelade, who crossed an ocean to fight in one of history’s most brutal conflicts, was wounded in Belgium, discharged as broken by war, and then taken by a pandemic in a remote corner of Canada, nearly vanished from history entirely. He was saved not by governments or institutions, but by a woman in Australia, a historian in the Channel Islands, and a couple of veterans on a Facebook group. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the Canadian Department of National Defence deserve credit for the ceremony itself, but the real heroes here are the people who refused to let Edwin Le Rossignol be forgotten.

That the occasion may be the last of its kind in Canada makes it all the more poignant. The generation that fought the Great War is, of course, long gone. But as long as there are people willing to do the painstaking work of finding them and bringing them home, in whatever sense that is still possible, the debt is being honoured. Jersey should be proud that one of its own was finally laid to rest with the dignity he deserved, more than a century after he first answered the call.

*Source: [Jersey Evening Post](https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2026/11/11/jersey-born-first-world-war-veteran-honoured-with-state-funeral-in-canada)*