George Nunn (1891 - 1917)
George – from Lawford – married a Bergholt girl. He served on the Western Front during the Autumn and Winter of 1916/17 until he was seriously wounded. George died of his wounds at a Base Hospital in Rouen.
- 50
- Died in the Great War
- 51.971933, 1.05967
Details
| Name: | George Nunn |
| Service: | British Army |
| Unit: | 11th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers |
| Regimental Number: | 60342 |
| Rank: | Private |
| Date of Death: | 19th February 1917 |
| Age: | 25 |
| Buried: | Block O, Plot VI, Row F, Grave 5, St. Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen, France |
A small number of the men commemorated on the East Bergholt War Memorial to those who gave their lives in the Great War never actually lived in the village, nor were they born there. Their names appear because one or more of their close relatives lived in the village. George Nunn is one of those men. 1 George is also commemorated on the Manningtree War Memorial and the British Xylonite Factory Memorials.
Family Background and Early Life
George Nunn was born on 21st April 1891 in Lawford. At that time his parents lived on Lawford Street.
George was the third of four children – all sons – born to Thomas and Emma Nunn (nee Dale). Thomas was a Fellmonger (quite possibly at the Tannery on Station Road) who was born and bred in Lawford, whilst Emma was originally from East Bergholt. 2 A Fellmonger was a dealer in hides or skins, who might also prepare skins for tanning.
Emma died in 1902, quite possibly due to complications after giving birth to a son. Certainly, George’s youngest brother – called William – was born no earlier than three months before Emma died.
Thomas remarried a year later, to a widow of a similar age to himself, called Maria Smith. Maria was originally from Ramsholt in Suffolk, but had lived in Manningtree for the last few years, and brought a 3 year old son to the marriage. Whether the family moved at this time is not known, but certainly by 1911 they were living on Station Road in Lawford.
Thomas Nunn had ceased to be a Fellmonger some years before, and now worked as a Maltster’s Labourer. After leaving school, George followed his father also became a Maltster’s Labourer for a time. Later he worked in the Roller “shop” at the Xylonite factory at Cattawade.
Joins the Army
It seems probable that George was conscripted into the the British Army, though he may possibly have volunteered to join under the Group Scheme and then elected to go into the Army Reserve until he was called. He was called up on 7th April 1916, and was initially posted to the 4th Reserve Battalion of the Essex Regiment at Halton Park in Buckinghamshire to undergo Basic Training.
On 15th July 1916 he married 21 year old Amelia Abbott at St. Mary’s Church in East Bergholt. Amelia – or Millie as she was called by her family – had spent most of her childhood in Brantham, and now lived with her widowed mother at 4 Holly Cottages, East End. After their marriage, given that George was away in the Army, Mille continued to live with her mother.
France
George was sent to join the British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) in France at the end of September. There, he was nominally posted to the 2nd Battalion of the Essex Regiment whilst he underwent a further short period of training at an Infantry Base Depot.
On 11th October, George was transferred to the 11th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers and joined them as part of a reinforcement draft a few days later.
The 11th Royal Fusiliers had recently taken part in the final capture of the village of Thiepval during the Battle of the Somme, and at the time that George joined they were in training several miles behind the front.
On 23rd October, the Battalion took over a stretch of the Front near the village of Courcelette, for a 3 day tour in the Trenches. Just two days previously this had been the location of fierce fighting during a British attack in which Hugh Salmon from East Bergholt had been killed. 3 Hugh Salmon, from Heath Road, served with 10th Battalion of the Essex Regiment. Hugh has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Over the next 3 weeks, the Battalion completed another two tours in these trenches, all of a similar duration. They left the Somme in late November and spent the next month and a half at training camps in the rear.
1917
The 11th returned to the Somme in mid-January 1917, and proceeded to do two more tours in the trenches near Courcelette. Though the Battle of the Somme had ended in November, the front was still an extremely dangerous place. When they were not in the trenches, they were a few miles behind the front often engaged in working parties.
It is not certain exactly when George was wounded, but it seems probable that it was either during a trench raid on 10th February, or possibly during an attack on 17th February near the feature called Boom Ravine.
George was evacuated from the front, and was admitted to No. 9 General Hospital at Rouen, in Normandy. This was classed as a Base Hospital and was one of several located there. Most of the Base Hospitals were located near the Army’s main bases which were close to the coast, far from the front, and had easy access to ports in order to permit wounded to be transported back to the U.K.
George died of his wounds at the hospital on 19th February 1917 and was buried in the St. Sever Cemetery Extension in Rouen. 4 Most of the soldiers who died in the Rouen hospitals were initially buried in the city cemetery of St. Sever, but by September 1916 it became necessary to begin an extension. The St. Sever Cemetery Extension now contains 8,346 Commonwealth burials from the Great War.
Other Bergholt men buried in St. Sever Cemetery or the Extension are Edward Clarke from Burnt Oak, William Dale from Box Corner and Henry Goodchild, from Gosnall’s Farm.
Postscript
Millie remarried after the War, and passed away in 1981, at the age 86. During the course of the Great War, she had lost a husband, a brother, and a brother-in-law. 5 Millie’s younger brother Albert – called Joseph by the family – served as a Private in the 2nd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. He was killed in action on 16th August 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, aged 19. Joseph has no known grave and is commemorated in the Thiepval Memorial.
Algernon Armitage was married to Millie’s older sister, Alice. They lived at 1 Holly Cottages, East End. He served as a Lance Corporal in the 2nd Battalion of the Essex Regiment, and died of wounds on 26th June 1915, aged 30. In the Second World War, she lost a nephew. 6 Millie’s nephew John Washington Abbott, the eldest son her brother John, lived at 4 Holly Cottages, East End. He was killed in action in Libya during the North African campaign, on 15 January 1943, aged 24.
Copyright © Mark Ashmore, 2024
- 50
- Died in the Great War
- 51.971933, 1.05967
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