Pte 90939 George Turner

In 1901 his parents are living at 350 Chorley Road, Westhoughton, with three young children.  His father, 33, is a shunter on the railway, his mother is 27, George is 2, Edwin 1, and Catherine is an infant.

 

By 1911 they have five children and have moved to 7 Clegg Street, Tonge Fold, Bolton.  His father is a railway goods guard for the L&Y Railway Co.  All five children are at school, George is 12.

He enlisted in Bolton and was serving in the 17^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 90939 when he was killed in action on the 04th April 1918, aged 19 during the German Spring Offensive.

The amount of the War Gratuity suggests George served less than a year before he was killed, enlisting in the summer of 1917, when he would have been 18 years old.

 

International Red Cross records show that his paybook and identity disc were sent in on 10/6/1918 to the Central Office for Personal Effects from a German Field Hospital.  Given that CWGC records show 4th April as his date of death, from wounds received on 27th March, we can infer that George was wounded when he was captured by the Germans and died in their hands in a field hospital. He was buried in grave no.56, Hattencourt German Cemetery (five miles north of Roye), with a cross erected to mark his grave. 

After the war, when graves were concentrated, his body was exhumed and reburied in Roye New British Cemetery, where he now rests. The inscription on his headstone reads:

"HIS NAME IS WRITTEN IN LETTERS OF GOLD IN THE HEARTS HE LEFT AT HOME"

 

Roye was in German hands from 30 August 1914 until the French retook it on 17 March 1917. The town was recaptured by the Germans on 26 March 1918 but was evacuated by them on 26 August. The French First Army entered the town the following day. Roye Old British Cemetery was 1.6 kilometres south of the town. It was made in March 1918, by the 53rd Casualty Clearing Station but there was little time to mark the graves before the town was captured by the Germans, who extended this cemetery for the burial of their own dead. In 1920 the Commonwealth graves were removed to Roye New British Cemetery. Roye New British Cemetery was made after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields. The cemetery contains 565 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War.

 

153 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials are erected to 13 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials record the names of 117 casualties buried in Marchelepot British Cemetery and in three German cemeteries, whose graves could not be found. The cemetery also contains the graves of 43 Second World War airmen.

 

The Pension Card, Soldiers’ Effects, and SDGW show 27th March as date of death, killed in action. His medal card and medal roll show the regimental number 90937.

 

His father Thomas Army effects, and a War Gratuity of £4.

 

His mother, Mrs. Ellen Turner, at 30 Cemetery Road, received a pension of 8/- a week.  After her death the pension went to his father, at 65 Leigh Road, Bolton.

 

George is commemorated on the Bolton Remembers website.

We currently have no further information on George Turner, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.