Pte 23477 George Beresford

In 1901 they are still in Exeter Street, at number 30, with six children at home. George is 14,  and is working as an office boy (commercial).

His father died in 1909, aged 65, leaving over £790 to his widow.

George married Harriet Booth on 28th November 1910 in the Wesleyan Chapel, Ancoats Lane, Manchester.

The 1911 census finds George and Harriet at 90 Old Elm Street, Ardwick.  George is 24, a salesman of piece goods (cotton spinners and manufacturers).  His widowed mother, 64, is living at 8 Clitheroe Road, Longsight, with Emma, James, and Matilda.

George and Harriet had one child, a son George, born on 11th June 1911 in Ardwick and baptised on the 25th June 1911 at All Souls Church, Ancoats.. 

George attested in Manchester and joined The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 23477 on 23rd November 1914. He gives his age as 28 years and two months, his occupation as warehouseman, and his address as 32 Thorncliffe Grove, Broom Lane, Levenshulme. He is described as being 5’ 5 and a quarter inches tall, weighing 127 lbs, with good physical development.  His record notes, qualifications: stretcher bearer.

He was posted to the 14th Battlion K.L.R. on 01st December 1914. 

His military record shows that he arrived in France on 04th September 1915, and on 28th October 1915 embarked at Marseilles for Salonika. As was common for soldiers serving in the Balkans, disease, specifically malaria, was a frequent cause of disability.

23/05/1916 to 31 Casualty Clearing Station, fever of unknown origin

24/05/1916 to 29 General Hospital

07/06/1916 rejoined unit in the field

16/09/1916 to 28 C.C.S. pyrexia (fever) and admitted 28 G.H. malaria

06/10/1916 discharged to duty

17/10/1916 rejoined unit in the field

03/05/1917 admitted 31 C.C.S. malaria recurrence

04/05/1917 admitted 43 G.H. Salonika

20/05/1917 to 2 Convalescent Depot

30/05/1917 arrived 2 Base Depot

25/06/1917 rejoined unit in the field

19/07/1917 to 66 F.A. cause not yet determined

21/07/1917 rejoined unit in the field

20/11/1917 arrived 28 G.H. Salonika (sick Off’s b’man)

29/11/1917 arrived 2 Base Depot

05/12/1917 rejoined unit in the field

06/05/1918 to 65th Brigade for duty

03/06/1918 rejoined unit

17/06/1918 admitted Military Hospital Bralo (southern Greece), cause not yet determined

29/06/1918 embarked Itea (Greece)

30/06/1918 disembarked Taranto (southern Italy)

11/07/1918 joined B.E.F., France.

After arriving at the Western Front, after nearly two years away, George was granted leave to the U.K. from 14th to 28th July 1918 and rejoined his battalion in the field on the 30th July 1918.  

On 13th August 1918 he was posted to the 18th Battalion K.L.R.

George was killed in action on 10th October, 1918 aged 32.

On 7th October 1918 the 18th Bn arrives at the Hindenburg Line and pursues the retreating German army.  The battalion War Diary records -  

10th October 1918 - At 0230 hours the battalion moved forward to a position near RUEMONT, and attacked towards LE CATEAU at 0510.  Very little opposition was met with at the start but later considerable M.G. fire was encountered. …  Our right company was not in touch with the flank, and the troops on the right appeared to be held up by M.G. fire from the railway embankment … A short length of trench on the high ground immediately E. of LE CATEAU was also reported to be held by the enemy.  At 0848 the Centre Coy reached K.33.b and pushed a platoon into the N. W. outskirts of LE CATEAU.  The right company was temporarily held up by MG and sniper fire, but appeared to be almost in the town itself.  Hostile M.G. fire was reported from the direction of Q.10. … Houses in K.28.a were reported to be strongly held by the Bosche, and a patrol was sent out to investigate and deal with them. … During the advance on LE CATEAU considerable difficulty was experienced, owing to a “whizz bang” battery being able to fire over open sights at the troops as they moved up the rise and along a slight valley.

Total Casualties from 7th to 13th October:

Killed – 2 Officers, 18 O.R.

Wounded – 6 Officers, 111 O.R.

Died of Wounds – 1 O.R.

Wounded and Missing – 1 Officer, 20 O.R.

George was one of those casualties referred to, he now rests at Highland Cemetery, Le Cateau, France, where his headstone bears the epitaph:

"REMEMBERED BY WHAT HE HAS DONE WE SHALL MEET AGAIN”

After the Battle of Le Cateau (26 August 1914), the town remained in German hands until the middle of October 1918. The original cemetery (Plot III) was made by the 50th (Northumbrian) Division after the fighting of 17 October; the name of Highland Cemetery is suggestive at once of the comparatively high ground on which it stands and of the 32 graves of the 13th (Scottish Horse) Battalion, Black Watch, found in this plot. The cemetery was greatly enlarged after the Armistice when graves of October and November 1918 were brought in from isolated positions on all sides of Le Cateau. Highland Cemetery now contains 624 First World War burials. The cemetery was designed by Charles Holden.His service record shows 10th October 1918 wounded in action, then wounded and missing. Later, his death, in action or from wounds, was assumed for official purposes as having occurred on or shortly after 10th October 1918.

The CWGC Graves Registration form shows that after the war George’s body was found, buried with 20141 Pte. William Cottrell, both identified as belonging to the 14th Bn K.L.R.  Pte. Cottrell died the same day (records differ as to whether he was KIA or died of wounds).  Their grave was marked with a cross and after the war their bodies were removed and reinterred in Highland Cemetery.

George earned his three medals.

His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £22-10s went to his widow Harriet and son George.

Harriet, living at 32 Thorncliffe Grove, Broom Lane, Levenshulme, was awarded a pension of 20/5d a week from June 1919.

In 1919 she provided information on George’s living relatives:  his mother Elizabeth was living at 8 Clitheroe Road, Longsight, with James Edward, 39, and Emma, 43.  His other sisters are married:  Lillian lives in Witherington, Maud in Leicester, Nellie in Colwyn Bay, Tillie lives in Clitheroe Road, and Amelia in Devonport.

His mother died in 1928 at the age of 81.  

Harriet never remarried; she had a son John (Jack) in 1929.

In September 1939 Harriet is still at 32 Thorncliffe Grove, employed as a sick nurse, with son Jack.

Her son George, 27, a fruit salesman, is living at 57 Longridge Street, Longsight, with his wife and infant son, George Stephen.

In World War II George served as a Gunner with the Royal Artillery and was captured by the Japanese at Singapore in February 1942.  In October 1942 a party of 517 British POWs, including George, from various artillery regiments, were transported from Singapore 3,600 miles to Ballalae Island in the Solomon Islands archipelago to build an airfield. Not one of those 517 men survived. They died from disease and malnutrition  as well as from Allied bombing, and those still alive when the air strip was completed were bayoneted or beheaded by the Japanese.  The official date of the Ballalae Massacre is 05th March 1943.  Their mass graves were discovered after the war; 438 bodies were discovered but none could be individually identified. Artefacts found in the grave proved these men were Royal Artillery personnel. The relatives of the men who died on Ballalae were never told officially how or where their loved ones died.

George,  aged 31, is commemorated on the Singapore Memorial.

Harriet appears to have died in 1967 at the age of 81, after losing her husband in the First World War and her son in the Second.

George and his son are commemorated in St. Mark's Church, Levenshulme.