Pte 49087 George Murphy

• Age: 33
• From: Neston, Cheshire
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 20th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: Sp.Mem.3

George Murphy was born in Neston, in the March quarter of 1884  (censuses show both Neston and Liverpool) in 1884, the son of Hugh Murphy and Emily White who were married in St Peters in Liverpool in 1877. Hugh is recorded as a tailor on his marriage certificate as was his father and Emily’s father too. Hugh was born in Ireland.

The 1891 census records the family living at 33 Desmond Street, Everton. Hugh is 44 and working as a tailor, Emily is 36, and they have five children. George is 7 and has older siblings Francis (Frank) aged 12, and Elizabeth aged 9, and two younger siblings Michael John aged 5 and 8 month old Samuel. Baby Samuel sadly died at the age of 15 months later in 1891.

By 1901 the family are living at 36 Thomson Street, Everton. Hugh is recorded as a sailor (seas) although this is possibly a transcribing mistake as he had been a tailor since first recorded on a census when he was 16. The couple have had two more children – Agnes born in 1892 and Ada in 1895. The other children living at home are Francis who is now 22 and working as a labourer for a furniture remover, Elizabeth aged 19, George who at 17 is a grocers assistant and (Michael) John aged 15.

George’s mother Emily died aged 48 in 1904. His sister Elizabeth marries Alexander Terrace in 1905, and brother John marries Jane Stevenson in 1911.

At the time of the 1911 census George aged 27 is living with his father at 5 Harewood Street, he is working as a house painter. The census records that Hugh aged 64 was born in Newry, County Armagh, and has had nine children, three of whom have died. Also living at home are brother Francis aged 32, a bricklayers labourer, and their sister Agnes aged 18. Brother John is living with his new wife at 47 Poplar Street and sister Elizabeth is living with her husband at 180 Breckfield Road North, the couple have a son and two daughters and 15 year old Ada is living with her sister.

George enlisted in Liverpool and was serving in the 20th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 49087 when he was killed in action on the 9th April 1917 during the Battle of Arras.

Everard Wyrall records the events of that day for the 17th, 19th and 20th Battalions in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19th King's on the right and the 20th King’s on the left. The 17th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19th and 20th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10th April.

Of the 17th King’s - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

George now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery, France with a headstone which contains the inscription at the top "Known to be buried in this Cemetery" and contains an epitaph which reads:

“THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT”

The epitaph comes from Ecclesiasticus 44 verse 13 and was chosen by Rudyard Kipling. These headstones commemorate casualties whose graves in a cemetery were destroyed or who were known to buried in the cemetery but the exact whereabouts within the cemetery were not recorded.

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.

George’s brother John, known as Jack, served in the 13th Battalion King’s Liverpool Regiment as private number 11498. He was killed in action on the 24th August 1916. He left behind Jane his wife and two small daughters; Gladys Emily born in 1913 and Eveline May born in 1914. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.

The father Hugh died aged 70 in 1917 shortly after his son George's death.

Freemans Journal 16th May 1917

IRISH NAMES IN BRITISH REGIMENTS.

WOUNDED

King's Liverpools - Murphy, 49087, G, Liverpool;

Their sisters put a notice in the Liverpool Echo on the 9th April 1918, the anniversary of George’s death:

Murphy – In loving memory of our dear brothers, George, killed in action April 9th 1917 also Jack, killed in action August 24th 1916.

Gone from amongst us, oh how we miss them

Loving them dearly their memory we’ll keep

Never till life ends shall we forget them

Dear to our hearts are the graves where they sleep

Sadly missed by their sisters, 45 Ivydale Road

Soldiers Effects and Pension to sisters Agnes and Ada, 45 Ivydale Rd.

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