During the First World War there was a need for labour as part of the war effort, and many Chinese Mariners served on UK vessels. Some of these became stranded in the UK and found other work. Two such men have been buried together at the bottom of the Spring Road Cemetery in Abingdon. Anne sent me an email asking whether, in these days of pandemic, they had been victims of the influenza pandemic.
An article in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch Vol. 60 (2020), titled The Chinese mariners of the First World War, says that there were 67 Influenza fatalities recorded among Chinese Mariners, serving on UK vessels, all but one after July 1918.
Muk Cheung, of Bao’an, an area of the city of Shenzhen, worked at the stores depot at Milton Barracks, and died in Abingdon Cottage Hospital of pneumonia on February 10th 1918, aged 31 years.
Ah Fook, possibly of Hong Kong, worked at the stores depot at Milton Barracks, and died in Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, of an aneurysm on April 13th 1918, aged 33 years.
Thank you very much for your research to find out what the story was of these two, rather solitary, graves. How sad that they both died so young and so far from home.