Henry joined up early in the war aged 37. His existing poor health was worsened by active service and he died in a military sanitorium in Christchurch in 1924.
He was born in Nelson in 1879, and online family trees list his parents as Thomas Berge Mathieson and Elizabeth Mathieson née Boyt or Boyd. Note that the spellings of Burge/Berge and Matheson/Mathieson are used inconsistently.
Henry joined the army in May 1915 and after training in New Zealand left as part of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade on a troopship for Egypt in October 1915. His service while based at Ismailia near the Suez Canal was interrupted by a bout of pneumonia, the first of many respiratory illnesses he was to suffer.
His unit transferred to the Western Front in Europe in 1916 and Henry was appointed as a cook, probably on account of his poor health. He was a cook from 1916 to 1917, interrupted by hospital stays for bronchitis in England in early 1917 and later that year, before being sent back to England for further treatment in early 1918. He was classed as unfit and returned to New Zealand later in 1918.
Back in New Zealand Henry spent time on sick leave and in military hospitals before being sent to a military sanitorium in Christchurch, where he died in 1924. He was buried in Bromley cemetery. The executor and sole beneficiary of his will was Margaret Alice Maud Greany of Christchurch, spinster.
