TOPIC:

The plaque was originally at the village school in Doddington, just over 5 miles south-east of Sittingbourne, Kent.




"A drinking pump, for the use of the school children, was erected in 1902, in memory of Hubert Faunce-de Laune, of the Duke of Cambridge’s Own Imperial Yeomanry, who was killed at Lindley, South Africa, May 20th 1900."
Kelly's Directory, 1903

From finding the above, and then through a message to a Facebook page, I was contacted by the gentleman who had saved the plaque after Doddington school had closed in December 2006, and has kept it safely ever since. He very kindly sent me the photo of the plaque.
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There are churches in both Newnham and Doddington, the nearest villages to Sharsted Court, yet his friends chose to remember Hubert through a "water pump" (drinking fountain?) and plaque at the nearest school - had Hubert been a pupil there? There are several photos online showing exterior views of the school building, but no pump or fountain is visible. Was it inside?


The Delaune family lived at Sharsted Court from the early 1600s, until 1839, when through inheritance, ownership passed to the Faunces; in 1864, Delaune was added to the surname, and was hyphenated, becoming Faunce-De-Laune. On a memorial plaque at Trinity Hall College, Cambridge, Hubert's surname appears as Faunce De Laune, as it also does in The Whitstable Times.

Steve Watt's account of the 13th Battalion at Lindley - samilitaryhistory.org/vol153sw.html

FAUNCE DE LAUNE.—Killed in action, Lindley, South Africa, in 13th Batt. Imperial Yeomanry, third son of the late C. de L. Faunce de Laune, of Sharsted Court, Sittingbourne, Kent, aged 25. ....Mr. Hubert Faunce de Laune Killed in Action.—On Thursday morning last Mr. Faunce de Laune, of Sharsted Court, received a telegram conveying the melancholy intelligence that his brother Hubert, of the Duke of Cambridge's Own Special Corps, had been killed in action in South Africa. Mr. Hubert de Laune was a young man of singular amiability and nobleness of character, and the grief resulting from his death, so far from being confined to his own immediate family, will be acutely felt by every person in the parishes of Dodington and Newnham, with which he was so intimately connected.
The Whitstable Times & Herne Bay Herald, Saturday 16th June 1900