Born Hull 1894. Corporal, CYRIL GEORGE HALL 10/431. Born 1894, the third of four children, and eldest son, to Albert henry Hall and Eva Mary Louise Hall, of 124 St Paul’s Street, Hull. One of the original Pals, Cyril worked as a Clerk in an Oil Merchants before he enlisted in the heady late summer of 1914. Cyril trained with the Battalion throughout 1915 eventually shipping to Egypt to help defend the Suez Canal in December of that year. They arrived in France in late March 1916, and Cyril was a veteran of the Somme and Oppy Wood before he was killed in action on 25th March 1918 during the German Spring Offensive. The line was overrun and very few bodies were able to be recovered, Cyril’s included. His name is commemorated on Bay 4-5 of the Arras Memorial to the missing. He was 24 years old. I’m looking at a grainy black and white photograph in a book. It shows the first members of the fledgling 10th Battalion learning drill on Walton Street in Hull. This was before they were issued uniforms, and I see a collection of men dressed in ill-fitting suits all starched shirts and ties, wearing oversize flat caps and staring solemnly at the camera. They look nothing like an army. They look exactly what they are, a random collection of clerks and shopkeepers playing at soldiers.
He is commemorated on the WW1 Memorial at St Mary’s Church, Lowgate, Hull.
