PRIVATE SAMUEL ESMOND WRIGHT 10/1370. Born Hull, 1897, Samuel was the youngest of five children, to Samuel (1858- 1986) and Lily Hodgson (1864-1929), of 9, Pleasant Place, Walker Street, Hull and 8, Pretoria Avenue, Edinburgh Street, Hull (War Pension address). He enlisted at City Hall, originally in the 10th Battalion before being transferred to the 11th, and he served in Egypt before arriving in France early in March 1916. Samuel was killed in action during the last attack of the Somme campaign. The Pals attacked German positions around Serre hoping to flatten a salient and prevent the enemy being able to shell them from more than one angle over the long hard winter ahead. It was November 13th 1916. Private Surfleet describes:
“The sight in that Medical Post was something we shall never forget. The MO, tunic off and sleeves rolled above the elbows, looked about finished. The place was literally jammed with bleeding men; the doctor’s hands moved mechanically from one wound to another. On one side were lots of stretcher cases; on all sides there were blood-stained bandages and that sickly, penetrating odour of iodoform and iodine. That, and looks on some of the faces of lads down there, made me hurry out into the fresh air; it was something not unlike the scene and smell of a slaughter-house.”
If you remember, Surfleet had helped move some of the dead down side trenches to help prevent them being blown to smithereens and lost forever. Samuel Esmond Wright was not one of them. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial; he was 19 years old.
Sam Wright’s name is recorded on the Hull Technical College Roll of Honour. Also listed on St John The Baptist War Memorial, Newington, Hull.
His war pension was left to his widowed mother, Lily. She remarried, became Mrs Watts and moved to 8 Pretoria Avenue, Edinburgh Street, Hessle Road, Hull (War Pension Address). She received 11 Shillings and 6 pence, a week, from 04/07/1917, for the loss of her son.
Serre, 13th November 1916 | Kingston upon Hull War Memorial 1914 – 1918 (ww1hull.com)
