GUNNER GEORGE RAWLES: 110746
327th Siege Battery Royal Garrison Artillery
George was born at Melplash in 1880, the younger of two sons born to Richard and Sarah Rawls (Rawles). He had two older sisters – Mary A. W. and Mary.
His father, Richard was a farm labourer and carter working at Melplash Court Farm and George also worked as a carter, first with one of the flax mills and later as a drayman for the local Bridport brewery.
In 1905 George married Florence Wallbridge in Melplash and they had two children, Kathleen Selina, born in 1906 and Arthur Richard two years later.
After the outbreak of war, George enlisted with the Royal Garrison Artillery in Bridport, December 1915 and after training was posted to France in March 1917. He contracted a ‘PUO’- a fever of unknown origin and after a period of convalescence back in England, returned to the field in November 1917.
In March 1918 George was ‘gassed’ and returned to England for treatment at the 3rd Western General Hospital Cardiff. He was back with his Battery in March 1918.
He was posted to the front near Cambrai – the site of fierce fighting and changing positions in the final months of the war. . . and George so nearly survived to return to his family.
Just nineteen days before the Armistice was signed, George was killed in action near the village of Montay.
His effects – a watch in a tobacco box, two keys, two pipes (broken), one tobacco pouch, two cigarette holders and letters were returned to his widow Florence at 172 South Street.
George is one of twenty-seven casualties of the battle at Montay to be buried at the Communal Cemetery near the village.