Edwin Ernest Herbert Lough was born on 29 September 1888, the youngest son of Arthur Dudley Lough, a preacher at the Seaman’s Mission in Whitby, and his wife Mary Jane. He was brought up at Ruswarp near Whitby in Yorkshire and then Barry, Glamorgan, and in 1908 went to the London College of Divinity, St John’s Hall, at Highbury, an evangelical training college set up in 1863 for those without a university degree. He matriculated in 1910 and gained a Diploma in Theology as an unattached student at Durham University the following year. Highbury College was formally associated with Durham University at this date, which allowed its students to qualify with Durham degrees. As one would expect in these circumstances, Lough left little trace in the university’s records apart from records of his having satisfied the examiners in the Michaelmas term of 1910 and Easter term 1911. He is again recorded at Highbury as a theological student in the April 1911 census.
Edwin Lough was ordained deacon in 1911 and priest in 1912 at Bristol. He remained in the diocese of Bristol over the next six years, serving as curate in Swindon from 1911-1914, Long Ashton from 1914-1915, Bitton 1915-1916 and at St Andrew’s Chippenham from 1916-1918 when he was called up. H. Crossland the curate of the neighbouring St Paul’s Chippenham enlisted at the same time as Lough and the two curates served together. They joined the Royal Army Medical Corps (R.A.M.C.) at Trowbridge on 4 July 1918 and were at Tidworth and then at Chiseldon before being sent to the 5th Training Battalion of the R.A.M.C. at the Royal Argyll Depot, Blackpool. Together they were posted for duty to the hospital of the Prisoner of War Camp at Colsterdale, Masham, North Yorkshire on 16 November 1918, and both must have immediately contracted influenza. Edwin Lough was admitted to his own hospital as a patient on 20 November and died of pneumonia nine days later. His friend Crossland recovered.
Private Edwin Lough is buried in Chippenham (London Road) Cemetery and is commemorated on the town war memorial and a reredos in the church of St Andrew in Chippenham, his former parish. A short obituary was also published in April 1919 in the Durham University Journal (vol. XXII, no. 2, p.74).
Lough had married Marjorie McCormack on 14 September 1915 at Northwick St Thomas, near Bristol, and had two sons, David, born 30 November 1916, and Michael, born 5 December 1917. Marjorie Lough was awarded a pension of £2 6s. 1d, but did not qualify for a war gratuity because he had served less than 6 months. The family lived with Marjorie Lough’s widowed mother at Northwick, Pilning, Bristol. She never re-married, and died in Bristol in 1972.