Richardson, George

Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE GEORGE RICHARDSON 225283. Born in Hull in 1897, George was the third of four children and eldest son of Thomas and Amy Richardson, of 300, South Boulevard, Hull, and 25, Hamlyn Avenue, Anlaby Road, Hull (CWGC address). His father died when George was still young and Amy raised the family on her own. I can discover little else of George other than that he served with the 1/5th East Yorkshire Cyclists and somehow joined the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment. He was with them when he was killed in action on November 20th 1917. He is buried at Roclincourt Military Cemetery and was 20 years old. It had been a long and bloody year for the Pals, with the Battle of Arras, in particular that fateful day at Oppy Wood, casting a long shadow over the remnants of the battalion. George’s death wasn’t part of some meaningful campaign, or heroic hand-to-hand struggle, he just fell victim to what the army refers to as “natural wastage”, namely the day-to-day deaths from a particularly accurate shell or a soldier who forgot to keep his head down at a particularly low part of the parapet and was picked off by a sniper. He gets no mention at all in any book, his life isn’t even a footnote in the history of the war, but George Richardson died out there like any man and deserves to be remembered just the same. Buried in France, His grave inscription, reads, “THY PURPOSE LORD WE CANNOT SEE, BUT ALL IS WELL THAT’S DONE BY THEE”