Lieutenant Felton Pickering Behan, MM was born 30 December 1886 in Toronto, son of George Barrington Behan and Julia Sarah Cockburn, probably the sixth of seven children. His father died in 1898 but little else is known about his early life. By the 1911 census however he was working as a farmer in Battleford, Saskatchewan.

On 14 June 1917 he married Clara Francis Goodwin in Lincoln, Ontario. In the 1921 census he was again farming and they were living in Winslow, Saskatchewan with their two children, Helen aged 2 and James aged 1.

A 1950 city directory for New Rochelle, Westchester, New York shows a Felton Behan as a radio operator (aged 64.) As he had worked as a signaller in WWI this may have been him.

Its believed he died in Canada 2 February 1977 aged 91.

Military Service

• 22 September 1914 – #9749 Behan, F.P. enlisted with 3rd Battalion, CEF (on his attestation form he indicated previous service with the active militia). He was 5’6 1/2″.
• 14 February 1916 – Appointed Lance Corporal
• 21 June 1916 – Promoted Corporal
• 01 November 1916 – Granted a Commission as a Temporary Lieutenant
• 21 December 1916 – Awarded Military Medal, London Gazette 29873 Page: 12447
• 31 December 1916 – Admitted to hospital with pleurisy
• 15 January 1917 – Discharged from hospital and sent home to Canada on medical leave
• 19 June 1919 – Discharged from the CEF as medically unfit

You can view his complete service file here.

Letters

Our museum has four letters from Behan to his mother who lived in Mimico:

• 19 September 1914 – Valcartier, Quebec
• 14 October 1914 – Aboard the Tunisia enroute to England
• 27 October 1914 – Bustard Camp, Salisbury Plains, England
• 4 March 1915 – “in the trenches”