BORN HULL 15/03/1898. SON OF GEORGE & MARY ELIZABETH FULLER, OF 287 HAWTHORN AVENUE, HULL, (1918 ABSENT VOTERS & HULL DAILY MAIL ADDRESS – 21/12/1918). SON OF A SEAMAN. HE ENLISTED IN HULL. SERVED WITH 1/4TH EAST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION, ON 10/04/1918, AGED 20. HIS ARMY EFFECTS WERE LEFT TO HIS MOTHER MARY. HE IS COMMEMORATED ON THE PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL, BELGIUM.
Very little is known about George Leslie, he was born March 15th 1898, He was the third child of four children born to George and Mary Elizabeth Fuller living in Hawthorne Avenue, Kingston upon Hull, As most of the records of army personnel in the first Would War were destroyed by fire during an air raid over London during the 2nd World War, The following information comes from the East Yorkshire’s Regimental Archives in York. It is thought that George Leslie enlisted as a boy soldier this may be borne out by the fact that the two original photos that my father had one shows George Lesley in uniform with one stripe, the other photo shows George Lesley with his sister and no stripe. Private George Lesley’s regimental number 203452 was issued early 1917, In theory soldiers did not go overseas until the age of nineteen, so June 1917 is the earliest possible date when he could have been sent overseas his Medal Roll shows he saw active service with the 1st and 1/4th Battalions East Yorkshire Regiment. the first major action after June 1917 was the Battle Broodseinde 4th October 1917 part of what is known as Passchendaele,The report from the Regimental Archives suggest that Private George Lesley might have been wounded at Broodseinde and might have been sent back to the UK for hospital treatment, on returning to France he would be sent to a Battalion in need of reinforcements in George Lesley case the 1/4th East Yorkshire Regiment The 1/4th was involved in the German spring offensive 1918 suffering heavy losses, The Battalion was involved in the Battle of Rosieres 26th- 27th March 1918, Further fighting involved 1/4th on the 30th and 31st March, The Battalion was in involved in constant fighting at the Battle of Estaires between the 9th and 11th April on the 11th the Battalion had only 120 men, Private George Lesley is believed to have been killed on the 10th April 1918 at age of 20 years, On the back of the original photo that my father had, he has written, “Posted as missing killed in action after a Gas Attack” the exact nature of his death may never be known. In the obituary his mother placed in the Hull Mail, “prisoner of war April 10th 1918 and now reported died on that date in German hands”. He with many others in the war has no known grave, but he is remembered with Honour at Ploegstreert Memorial to the Missing in Flanders. Private George Leslie’s name is also on the Roll of Honour in Beverley Minster; Private George Leslie’s mother was sent the British War Medal and the Victory Medal, By rights Private George Leslie’s mother should have been sent a named copy of the large bronze Memorial Plaque (known as the dead man’s penny) which was sent to families of all personnel who died in the war, my understanding after resourcing the internet is that the a form was sent to the next of kin and they had to fill out the form and return it to the war office, No trace has ever been seen of this Medal so one wonders if the form was ever returned to the war office having lost two sons in the war it’s understandable that this might have been the case. As we know from the CWGC that Private George Lesley’s mother seems not to have returned the form for verification of his name and other particulars for Private George Leslie so that the details of his next of kin could be placed in the cemetery register alongside his name. Looking in Ancestry at the National Army Museum web site I discovered that George Leslie’s mother was paid £12-2p on March 3rd 1919, £8 war gratuity and the other £4-2p presumable his army pay due to him when he died. My wife and I visited his memorial 12th September 2012 we believe we are the first in the family to do so. After our visit to the Ploegstreert Memorial we persuaded the CWGC to add his next of kin to their Register at the Ploegstreert Memorial and to the entry on their web site, His brother James Albert Fuller also died he served with the Australian Imperial Forces. CREATED BY: DAVID17324
