BORN HULL JULY 1897. HULL PAL. SON OF JOHN RICHARD BURNETT (1875-1937) & EMILY CLARKE (1874-1947), of 108, HIGH STREET AND 9, ETON TERRACE, PROVIDENCE ROW. HE WAS A SINGLE MAN, WHO LIVED WITH HIS PARENTS AND WORKED AS A RULLYMAN. HE ENLISTED HULL ON 19/11/1914. SERVED IN EGYPT. KILLED IN ACTION, AT SERRE, ON 13/11/1916, AGED 19. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL, ON 13/11/1919. HE IS COMMEMORATED ON THE THIEPVAL MEMORIAL, FRANCE. HIS ARMY EFFECTS WERE LEFT TO HIS FATHER, JOHN. HIS BROTHER JOHN WILLIAM BURNETT ALSO SERVED AND SURVIVED THE WAR.
PRIVATE GEORGE THOMAS BURNETT 12/1128. Born in 1897, George was the youngest of two sons to John and Emilie Burnett of 19 Eaton Terrace, Providence Row, Hull. A Keelman before the war, he enlisted at City Hall on 19th November 1914 joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Sportsmen’, 3rd Hull Pals. It seems that during his training George had a certain issue over returning on time from a pass, something he was disciplined over twice and which cost him a fair few days wages. He was killed in action at Serre on November 13th 1916 in the last desperate act of the disastrous Somme campaign and his body was never recovered. George is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France; he was 19 years old. It seems too great a coincidence that three men such as George, Harold Crawford and James Andrews who all stood within 13 men of each other in the same queue on the same day to enlist, could all die on the same day without their having fought side by side. At least they were in good company.
The group photo is of the 12th EYR at South Dalton in 1914. George Burnett is holding the gun.
