BORN HULL 17/06/1891. FULL NAME: PERCY MONTAGUE CAMERON HALL. SON OF ARTHUR & EMILY HALL. BROTHERS ERNEST & RUPERT, 10TH EYR ALSO SERVED. WIFE MRS CLAIRE LAUGHTON HALL LIVED ENDYKE LANE. HE WORKED AS AN ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN, HULL CENTRAL LIBRARY. DEATH REPORTED IN THE HDM 16/05/1918. HIS NAMELISTED ON ST MARY’S CHURCH, LOWGATE ROLL OF HONOUR.
Percy enlisted in the East Yorkshire Regiment 10th Battalion on 7 September 1914. He served with the Expeditionary Force in Egypt from December 1915, and proceeded to France in March 1916, taking part in many engagements. Whilst on leave Percy married Claire Laughton on 18 February 1918 at St John, Newland in Hull. Percy then returned to France.
His elder brother, Ernest Stephen Hall, had previously served with the 4th Battalion The Kings Royal Rifle Corps in the Boer War. Ernest rejoined his old Battalion on 27 August 1914, and was medically discharged 4 December 1915 following shell shock. Ernest was a well known tenor singer, and member of Hull Musical Union and Hull Amateur Operatic Society. Ernest settled in Stafford in the 1930s, becoming manager of a cinema. He passed away in 1937.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE PERCY MONTAGUE CAMERON HALL 10/866. Percy was born on 17th June 1891, the third of four sons to Arthur Cameron and Emily Hall (nee Spours) of Albion Street, Hull. Percy’s father was Chief Librarian at the Hull Church Institute and he had followed his father into the calling, being an Assistant Librarian at Hull Public Libraries. One of the original Pals, Percy enlisted on 7th September 1914 and fought in Egypt from December 1915 to the March of 1916 when he sailed for the trenches of France. He was a veteran of the Somme and Oppy Wood, but his luck ran out near Bethune on 12th April 1918 when he received fatal injuries as a result of the fierce fighting there during the German Spring Offensive. He was evacuated to the New Zealand Stationary Hospital, Wiques, St. Omer but succumbed to those wounds two days later, on the 14th. He is buried at Longuenesse Souvenir Cemetery; he was 26 years old. De Ruvignys Roll of Honour cites the testaments of two of his comrades, one wrote: “We did indeed love him only too well and the memory of him will always be with us through life. He was so straight and honest, a true comrade and another, He was absolutely one of the best and I shall never forget him. Perhaps even more tragically, he had just returned from leave when he had married Claire Laughton at St. Johns Church in Hull on 18th February 1918.
