Private Albert Edward BISSONI (1877–c.1898)

Albert Edward Bissoni was born at 21 Bell Street, Westminster on 2 March 1877 and baptised at Holy Trinity Church in Vauxhall Bridge Road on 20 June. His parents were Bartholomew Joseph Bissoni and Sarah Ann Lawrence, who were married at St Margaret's Church in Westminster on Christmas Day 1864.

His Italian surname came from his great-grandfather Bartolomeo Antonio Maria Fortunato Bissoni, who was born in Italy in c.1774 and emigrated to Jersey.

The 1881 census shows Albert, aged three, living at 23 Buckingham Cottages, Westminster with his father Bartholomew (40), who was a labourer, his mother Sarah (39), who was a machinist, and his five siblings: Alfred (13), who worked as a shoe black, Bartholomew (12), Alice (6), and Harold (5), who were all at school, and Arthur (1).

His parents were in and out of the workhouse multiple times between February 1883 and March 1904.

On 22 May 1885 when Albert was aged seven he was admitted with his younger brother Albert to the St George's Union Workhouse in Westminster.

By the time of the 1891 census Albert, still only aged 14, was a Private in the Oxfordshire Light Infantry based at the New Barracks in Gosport.

Albert's regimental department number was 3615 when he was sent to India in 1897. He served on the Punjab Frontier in 1897/8, but not on the Tirah Campaign. He died of disease in c.1898, and was posthumously awarded the India Medal with one bar.

Albert's parents both died in London in 1920.