Name
Gerald Philip Day
1897
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
26/09/1916
19
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lieutenant
Lincolnshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
GROVE TOWN CEMETERY, MEAULTE
I. E .47
France
Headstone Inscription
THEN BEGAN FOR YOU NEW LIFE, NEW WORK, NEW POWERS, however CWGC website gives incorrect inscription as PEACE PERFECT PEACE
UK & Other Memorials
Haileybury College Cloister Wall Memorial, Hertford Heath, Not on the Ickleford memorials
Pre War
Gerald Philip Day was born in Bloomsbury, London on 15 April 1897, the only son of Annie Marion and Richard Philip Day and baptised at St Paul's, Greenwich on 22 May 1897, by his grandfather George Smith who was the vicar. His sister Louisa died as an infant in August 1897.
On the 1901 Census he was living at 18 Bloomsbury Square with his parents and two servants. His father was an architect and surveyor and gave his place of birth as Hitchin. (N.B. his father had been born in Ickleford in 1854, was baptised there and lived there in 1861).
His father died in 1903 and on the 1911 Census his widowed mother was living with her parents George and Hannah Smith at St Paul's Vicarage, Bunhill Row, London EC. Gerald was then a 13-year-old student at Haileybury College, Hoddesdon, Herts where he was educated until 1914.
His mother later lived at Freewaters, Ickleford.
Wartime Service
Gerald gained a commission with the 2nd Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment and was sent to France, landing in Boulogne on 2 June 1915. He joined the Battalion near Laventie (between Ypres and the Somme), where they were holding the lines.
War diaries suggest that he was temporarily attached to the 1st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment and that he was wounded during a failed attack near the village of Flers on the Somme on 25 September 1916. Sadly he died of his wounds, probably at the 34th Casualty Clearing Station, the following day, aged 19, and is buried at Grove Town Cemetery, Mealte, France. (N.B. the 34th CCS had moved to Grove Town on 14 September).
Additional Information
His mother received a war gratuity of £51 and pay owing of £2 19s 1d. She died in Carlisle, Northumberland in 1951, aged 80, and was then buried in St Marylebone Cemetery, Finchley, London. The inscription of PEACE PERFECT PEACE ON THE CWGC website is incorrect and original documents shown on the website confirm the actual inscription of THEN BEGAN FOR YOU NEW LIFE, NEW WORK, NEW POWERS. Photo on www.findagrave.com confirms the inscription.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Malcolm Lennox, Karen Smith - Acting Director of External Relations www.haileybury.com/honour, Brenda Palmer, www.findagrave.com.
