Name
George Bryant
1889
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
13/11/1916
27
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
26216
Bedfordshire Regiment
4th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 2 C.
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Ashwell Village Memorial, St Mary’s Church Roll of Honour, Ashwell
Pre War
George Bryant was born in 1889 in the Royston Registration District (which includes Steeple Morden, Cambs Odsey, Cambs, and Ashwell, Hertfordshire, all of which have been given as a birthplace on Census returns), the son of Benjamin and Esther Bryant (nee Huffer) and one of eight children.
On the 1891 Census the family were living at Spring Head, Ashwell, where his father was working as a general labourer. They remained in Ashwell in 1901 but had moved to Green Lane, and moved again by 1911 to Victoria Cottage, Ashwell, at which time his father was a coal porter and George was a bricklayer's labourer.
He was educated at Merchant Taylors School, Ashwell and was working as a bricklayer's labourer with Messrs F J Bailey & Co of Ashwell before enlistment.
Wartime Service
George enlisted in February 1916 and joined the Bedfordshire Regiment, serving with the 4th Battalion in France as part of the 190th Brigade, 63rd (Royal Naval) Division. The Regiment landed at Le Havre on 25 July 1916 and went straight to the front line on the Somme.
He was killed in action during the Battle of the Ancre on 13 November 1916, aged 27, in an assault on the village of Beaucourt . The attack began at 06.00 am in darkness and thick fog which continued throughout the day. The German dugouts and machine gun positions were initially surprised but were not neutralised and their heavy rifle and machine gun fire inflicted more than 190 casualties on the Battalion in the action.
George has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, France.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £3 and pay owing of £2 18s 1d. Pension cards indicate that his mother appears not to have been awarded a dependant's pension but was given a gratuity (amount not shown).
Brother to Arthur, Percy, Stanley and Sidney Bryant who all served, survived the war and returned to Ashwell. Brother Rupert received a shrapnel wound to his arm but also survived and was awarded a wound stripe.
The newspaper Royston Crow on 24 November 1916 reported that George Bryant had been killed, and that his friend Private Fred Bray had been wounded in the same action. They had both been employed by F J Bailey & Co of Ashwell.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Adrian Pitts, Paul Johnson, www.ashwellmuseum.org.uk
