Name
George Henry Harris
19 June 1899
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
14/10/1918
19
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
56547
Lancashire Fusiliers
18th Bn
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
DADIZEELE NEW BRITISH CEMETERY
VI. C. 7.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
HIS GENTLE SMILE AND LOVING FACE NO ONE CAN FILL THAT VACANT PLACE
UK & Other Memorials
St Mary's Church Memorial, Apsley End, GB Kent & Sons (Kent Brushes) Memorial, Apsley, Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial, Not listed on the Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
George Henry Harris was born in Bethnal Green, Middx on 19 June 1899, the son of George and Elizabeth Harris, and baptised at St John's Bethnal Green on 9 July 1899. At the time of his birth his father was working as a brush maker and they were living at 47 Moss Street. He was the eldest of three sons, his two younger brothers being Arthur and John.
In 1901 the family were living at 26 Felix Street, Bethnal Green with his father working as a brush maker and his younger brother Arthur (then unnamed and only 11 days old).
They had moved to Hemel Hempstead prior to his younger brother John James being born in early 1904 and on the 1911 Census were living at 5 Kent Avenue, Hemel Hempstead at which time his father was a brush maker at the local factory. George was a schoolboy, but later worked at the same factory of G B Kent & Sons (Kent's Brushes) after he left school in 1912 and became an apprentice "Bone Turner".
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Watford in July 1917 shortly after his eighteenth birthday and originally served with the Hertfordshire Regiment under reg. no. 51399. After basic training he was sent to France eight months later and posted to the 18th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers.
He first saw action at the Fourth Battle of Ypres in which there were large numbers of casualties in the 18th Battalion. He was killed in action on 14 October 1918, aged 19, during the Final Push, when the Battalion attacked Courtrai in Belgium. He is buried at Dadizeele New British Cemetery.
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £6 10s and pay owing of £16 1s 3d. She also received a pension of 6 shillings a week from 27.5.19.
This man’s connection to the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment may be misleading. This combined regiment was not officially formed until 1919, but arguably the process began in May 1918 with the amalgamation of the remnants of Hertfordshire Regiment with those of the 6th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. When men died before 1919 it is likely that they were officially still in one or the other of the individual regiments. In the absence of other information we are recording them as related to Hertfordshire, rather than miss such a relationship.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.roll-of-honour.com, www.hemelheroes.com.,
