Name
George Humphrey Irving Graham
2 March 1873
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
07/02/1916
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Major
44th Merwara Infantry
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BASRA MEMORIAL
Panel 57.
Iraq
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Not on the Baldock memorials
Pre War
George Humphrey Irving Graham was born in Benares, India, on 2 March 1873, the son of Major-General George Fergus Irving Graham and his wife Lilias Dudgeon, and was baptised on 1 April 1873 at Bengal, India.
He was educated at St Paul's School, London. On the 1891 Census George was recorded with his parents, sisters Muriel, Beatrix and Joan and brother Neil, living at at 40 Woodstock Road, Chiswick, Middlesex, at which time his father was described as a Retired Major-General.
He served with the 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) from 1891, serving for five and a half years in the ranks before being gazetted 2nd Lieutenant in the Devonshire Regiment on 7 July 1897. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 7 October 1899 and Captain on 1 August 1901, then taking part in the South African War and the defence of Ladysmith. He gained the King's and Queen's medals and five clasps. Exchanging to the Indian Army on 18 February 1911, he was promoted to Major on 7 July 1915.
He married Lilias Whitson on 23 November 1903 at Blairgrowrie, Perth, Scotland and they had two children, Beatrice, born 1907 and Neil, born 1910. Sadly his daughter died in 1918 in Guildford, Surrey at the age of 11.
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of war in 1914, he was on leave and returned to India in August. He served with the 44th Merwara Infantry and left Ajmere for the Persian Gulf in January 1915. He was killed in action on 7 February 1916 at Butaniyeh on the Euphrates, during the Siege of Kut Al Amara, when the Ottoman Army besieged an 8000 strong British Army garrison to the south of Baghdad. The siege lasted 148 days, from December 1915 to April 1916.
The Hertford Mercury dated 19th February 1916 reported that George was "late 1st Devon Regiment" and of The Grange, Baldock when killed in action in Mesopotamia, on February 7th.
Additional Information
His widow obtained probate of his estate on 11 March 1916 at Edinburgh, Scotland, with effects of £633 6s 8d. She gave her address as The Grange, Baldock, Herts
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.masonicgreatwarproject.org.uk
