Edwin Pugh was born in Picton on 30 March 1911, the sixth child and only son of carpenter William Pugh (1866-1944) and Wilhelmine Dorothea Henrietta Pugh (nee Hillmer) (1872-1956).
By 1919 the family had moved to Taranaki so Edwin (known as Eddie) and his sisters Dorothea, Evelyn, Myrtle, Edith and Elsie attended schools in Inglewood, Pātea and Hāwera.
Eddie married Thelma Marjorie Russ (1914-1968) from Stratford on 24 October 1936 and they made their home on Brooklands Road in New Plymouth. Thelma gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, on 26 December 1938 – Eleanor Marjorie Pugh (later Gibbons) (1938-2022) and Barry Edwin Pugh (1938-2013).
Eddie was working as a motor mechanic when the Second World War broke out. He enlisted on 25 June 1942 and undertook training at Waiouru and Linton army camps before serving as a driver with the 18th Tank Transporter Company of the New Zealand Army Service Corps. Sent to Italy on the ship Nieuw Amsterdam, he was eventually awarded five medals: the 1939-1945 Star, the Italy Star, the Defence Medal, the War Medal 1939-1945 and the New Zealand War Service Medal.
Eddie continued to work as a mechanic after the war but that wasn’t his only talent – he made the cake for his children’s 21st birthday party, as featured in Taranaki Spotlight magazine.
Edwin Pugh died in New Plymouth on 17 February 1991 aged 79 after suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease for the previous six years.
Auckland Museum Online Cenotaph
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