Name
George Martin
18 July 1896
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
24/09/1917
21
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
17715
Bedfordshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Welwyn Garden City Memorial, Hatfield Hyde Village Memorial, St. Mary Magdalene, Church Memorial, Hatfield Hyde, Hatfield Town Memorial, Hatfield In Memoriam Book, Not on the Great Offley memorials, Memorials to the Air Raid if 24th September 1917, The Old Bedford Hotel, London
Pre War
George Martin was born in Offley, Herts on 18 July 1896, the son of William and Sarah Martin, and baptised at Offley, Herts on 13 December 1896. He was one of four children, with older sisters Nellie and Ethel and younger brother Albert.
On the 1901 Census the family were living at Old Chapel Yard, Offley. Herts, where his father was working as a ploughman on a farm and his mother as a strawplaiter.
His father died and on the 1911 Census he was living with his widowed mother and brother Albert at Hatfield Hyde, Herts. No occupation was recorded for Sarah or George, who was 14, but a John Hipgrave was boarding with them.
George Martin attested on the 9th November 1914. He was 19 years old, and his occupation was listed as a cowman and later on as a horse man. His next of kin was Sarah Martin living at Hatfield Hyde. George was 5ft 5inches tall; he had a fresh complexion, with brown hair and eyes. He enlisted at Hertford and was considered fit.
Wartime Service
George served with the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment in France from 22 June 1915 to 4 October 1915.
He was discharged on 28 April 1916 as no longer physically fit for war service, having received a gunshot wound to the right forearm just below the elbow on 25 September 1915 during the Battle of Loos, and also found to have a heart murmur and aphasia caused by active service.
The wound was described: “Was hit by a rifle bullet on the right arm just below the elbow, causing a large lacerated wound on the Ulna side. In hospital three or four days after he was put under anaesthetic and bullet removed.........He was about thirteen weeks in hospital, the wound being septic at the time............
The wound healed well leaving a useful arm.......since being wounded he suffers from an impediment in his speech suggestive of aphasia, evidently of nervous origin. He has presystolic murmur audible at the base of heart. Discharge recommended permanently unfit.”
He received a Chelsea pension no. 80467/D. Awarded a pension of 12/6d from 29th April 1916 to 30th October 1917 and another 7/- for the same period
He later recovered sufficiently to work as a Stoker at a St Pancras Hotel, London, but was killed during an air raid on 24 September 1917 at Southampton Row, near the Bedford Hotel. He was one of a number of people who were standing in the doorway of the Bedford Hotel, 13 were killed and 22 injured. George received shock injuries to the body and lower limbs consequent of a bomb thrown from an enemy aircraft. There had previously been Zeppelin raids, but this was the first by Gotha bombers of the German Air Force. The Hotel was damaged and hardly a window remained intact along the street.
The Bishop’s Hatfield Parish Magazine of December 1914, in the fourth list of men mobilised from Hatfield, recorded: “Martin, George Hatfield Hyde, 4th Beds Regt.” then in November 1915: “Wounded.... George Martin.” and finally in November 1917: “Obituary: Within the past month there have been called to rest two men who might have been thought to have their life’s work still before them. In Edward Horsey and George Martin we find the best type of manhood, single minded dutiful sons, who can ill be spared. The former died after a short attack of pneumonia; the latter was killed at his post during one of the recent air raids on London.”
Awarded the 1915 Star, British War Medal, & Victory Medal.
Additional Information
Although George died after discharge his mother received a war gratuity of £6.
N.B. No Silver War Badge record has been found for George Martin.
Hatfield Parish Council Souvenir Committee Ledger: Mrs Martin (Mother) of Hatfield Hyde received an “In Memoriam and Roll of Honour Album”.
Not in the CWGC records.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Brenda Palmer, www.ourwelwyngardencity.org.uk, www.bedfordregiment.org.uk, Christine & Derek Martindale, Hatfield Local History Society (www.hatfieldhistory.uk)
