BORN HULL 1895. SON OF WALTER JESSOP (1873-1954) & ELIZA ANN RAPER (1874-1950), OF 9 GREEN LANE & 7 , JOHN STREET, HULL (HULL DAILY MAIL ADDRESS – 13/11/1919). HE HAD TWO BROTHERS AND ONE SISTER. WORKED AS A RULLYMAN. DESCRIBED AS 5 FOOT, 5.5 INCHES TALL, 150 LBS WEIGHT, 38-405 INCH CHEST, GOOD PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT.
HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS, ON 16/09/1914. TRAINED IN HULL, DALTON HOLME, RIPON AND SALISBURY. SERVED IN EGYPT AND FRANCE. WOUNDED IN THE HEAD, ON 19/06/1916. REJOINED HIS UNIT AND WAS KILLED AT SERRE, ON 13/11/1916, AGED 21. HIS NAME IS LISTED AS KILLED IN ACTION, ON REFORM STREET ROLL OF HONOUR – HDM 26/10/1917.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE WALTER GEORGE JESSOP 12/335. Born in 1895, Walter was the eldest of four children to Walter and Eliza Jessop of 7 John Street, Hull. A Rullyman by trade he enlisted at City Hall on 16th September 1914, joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Sportsmen’, 3rd Hull Pals. After serving in Egypt over the winter of 1915-16, Walter arrived in France on March 8th 1916 and heading straight for the trenches of the Western Front. He was wounded in the head by shrapnel on 20th July 1916, on the Somme, and evacuated to the hospital centre at Boulogne, where he was treated for an injury to his face and left eye. He survived and was passed fit enough to return to his unit on 15th September. Walter was killed in action on 13th November 1916, opposite Serre, during the last pointless action of the Somme campaign and his body was never recovered; his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France. He was 21 years old.
