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OUR WAR
MEMORIAL
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This article was first published by the Pirton Magazine in July/August 2004, and is provided courtesy of the magazine, the editor Derek Jarrett. Further acknowledgments appear at the end of the article.
GEORGE TRUSSELL
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Nearly
a century after the four years of men being killed in a war that produced so
many personal tragedies, it is hard to appreciate the close-knit community of
Pirton. So many families were related, many young men and women marrying within
the village. The letter bearing news of another death at the Front touched so
many homes in the village. The fear and anguish for sons, fathers and brothers
at the Front rose to monumental heights.
It is that closeness of families and the commonest of names that can cause confusion in researching the men on our War Memorial. Yet such is that confusion, for around the 1880's there were two sets of George and Elizabeth Trussells recorded in the village. But it is to Elizabeth Pitts who, on 6th April 1885, married a fellow villager, George Trussell, at St. Mary's that we turn our attention. Elizabeth was 28 but their life together was to be short-lived for only three years later, on 19th April 1888, George died at the early age of 36. In that same year, 1888, a son, also George, was born.
George, the subject of our War Memorial names, was baptized at St. Mary's in October 1888. We do not know whether father and son ever saw each other, if so it can only have been a very brief glance.
George seems to have been the third child of Elizabeth, with a daughter (Emily or Ellen) two years older and James, born in 1877, carrying his mother's maiden name, Pitts. After her husband died in 1888, life for Elizabeth must have been desperately hard. She found herself alone with an 11 year old son, James, and young George and his sister both under three. The family is shown on the 1901 census as living in Burge End, simply the area of the village below The Fox. George's mother earned what little money she could by straw plaiting, a major but poorly paid occupation in the village. George attended the village school, leaving just after the turn of the century.
We may assume that on leaving school, young George earned what he could as a farm worker. There is no indication that he married. By the outbreak of the War, George was 25 and some time in the next months he enlisted at Hitchin and subsequently became Private G/22199 in The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment.
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On
9th April 1917 the British opened an offensive at Arras. It had been carefully
rehearsed and for once it was immediately successful whilst the Canadians took
Vimy Ridge. But the Germans pushed reserves forward and the only result of the
battle were 150,000 British casualties and 100,000 German. A day after this
offensive had started, George was killed in action - on 10th April 1917. He is
commemorated on the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France, Bay 2
We know nothing of George's mother, Elizabeth, after his death. There is no record of her being buried in Pirton; perhaps she moved away or remarried. She was only 31 when her husband died and 60 when her son was killed on a foreign field.
*** For help with this article we thank: Clare Baines, Michael
Newbery, Ron Crawley, Lynda Smith
www.roll-of-honour.com, Helen Hofton, Jonty Wild, that local history gem 'A
Foot on Three Daisies’ and Chris Ryan for Pirton war memorial photos.
Points of contact are:
Pirton Website Jonty Wild via jontywild@pirton.org.uk
We would like to ask for your help, if you have any information, photographs or artefacts:
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For the remaining men yet to be included in a magazine article. |
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For any new information on those already published or following publication. |
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For men who survived the war. |
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If you have any photographs of soldiers from that war who you believe may be related to Pirton, but don't know who they are |
Please get in touch jontywild@pirton.org.uk
Also if anyone would like copy of any Pirton WW1 war grave or memorial please contact Jonty Wild, digital copies for personal use will be provided free of charge to relatives, photographs can be provided for a small charge.
