Eventually details were prised from the records, and a picture began to take shape. Grandfather, too, was the youngest son of his family, with one younger sister, and seven older siblings. In succeding years, details were discovered about each of them, with the exception of the oldest brother, George, who had disappeared without trace after the 1861 census. I decided that he had died but that his death had somehow evaded all records. I still cling to a similar supposition about their father, of whose demise I have never found trace, although their mother re-married in 1892.
About four years ago, I decided to make one final attempt to crack the mystery of great-uncle George. I settled down to search systematically through everyone named George Evans, born in 1852, recorded in the 1871 census. If not dead, I reasoned, he must be somewhere! Amazingly, the first record I looked at was successful. He had joined the army and was listed at Colchester Barracks in the 27th Regiment of Foot (which was joined with the 108th Regiment in 1881 to become the two battalions of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers). Further finds quickly followed, as I discovered his discharge papers and found that, on leaving the army in March, 1876, he had settled in Enniskillen, where, as I later learned, he had married the previous Christmas Eve.
From what I had assumed to have been a dead twig on my tree, a flourishing branch had blossomed. George and his wife Mary Jane raised a family of eleven who, from the seven marriages I know of, produced at least 24 grandchildren, many of whom had families of their own. I often wonder just how much - if anything - my dad ever knew of his Irish cousins. I realised only recently that grandfather would have been less than two and a half when George enlisted on 10th January 1871 (and he may well have left home some while before that). It seems possible, then, that he may have grown up virtually unaware of his brother and in later years, with a big family of his own to bring up, passing on the family's history to them would scarcely have been his top priority!
This week I've been thinking about George's two youngest sons, my second cousins once removed. At 17, Samuel had left home by the time of the 1911 census, and was living on a farm in a nearby village. Meanwhile, Harry, 13, was still living at home with some of his younger siblings, while his widowed father had re-married and was living in the next street. Both boys later followed their father's example and joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. I have pieced together what follows from internet sources (mainly Wikipedia), because there is very little of a personal nature to go on.
When Samuel enlisted - any time from the autumn of 1912 - he joined the 2nd battalion, who were stationed at Dover when war broke out in 1914. Very soon they found themselves in Flanders, where they were involved in the battle at Le Cateau, following the retreat from Mons. Once the western front had stabilised, following the indecisive 'race to the sea', a sequence of engagements took place the following spring around the Belgian-French border. The 2nd Inniskillings were part of the British 2nd Division who took part in the Battle of Festubert (15th to 25th May). Like the larger offensive on the Somme the next year, it began with a heavy artillery barrage which failed to penetrate the enemy lines, followed by an infantry advance which sustained heavy casualties.
Samuel was one of those 5,445 losses suffered by the division before it was withdrawn on 19th. He has no grave, but is named on the Le Touret memorial, which stands beside the D171 road from Béthune to Lille. Its inscription is very moving:
"In memory of 13,482 British officers and men who fell fighting in this neighbourhood between October 1914 and September 1915 whose names are here recorded but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death."
It must have been soon after this that Henry (who would have reached 18 that July) joined the colours. The 1st battalion of the Fusiliers had been in India at the outbreak of war, and were part of the 29th Division at Gallipoli in 1915. Henry appears to have been one of a contigent of new recruts who were sent to join them on the western front after the seasoned men had arrived in Marseilles in mid-March 1916. Following the now famous week-long night-and-day bombardment, thousands of young men stood to with a wide variety of emotions ready for that fateful whistle at 7.30 am on the 1st July. Henry and the rest of the 1st Inniskillings were positioned towards the left flank, near Beaumont Hamel, about half way between the Albert-Bapaume Road and Gommecourt, where the filmed explosion of a 40,000-lb mine under the Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt occurred. It was this northern section of the front which bore the brunt of the almost 60,000 casualties incurred on that first day.
After the first day of the battle, General Haig wrote in his diary that, 'given their lack of progress, the men of VIII Corps [which included the Inniskillings] could not have left their trenches.' This was before he had learned of the slaughter that had taken place. He replaced the leader of VIII Corps immediately, but afterwards was unable to renew the attack in that sector because 'the trenches were clogged with dead and dying men.'
Needless to say, Henry is also simply a name on a memorial, in this case the famous one at Thiepval. It is interesting that both brothers died on the first day of a significant battle. It's arguable whether, perhaps, if they had to die in action, it were better this way, but there can have been nothing 'easy' about that ghastly war. We can only join with thousands of others and say,
"May they rest in peace ..."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Following a spate of spam comments, all comments on this blog are moderated. Only genuine comments on the content will be published or responded to.