Universities at War

George Hall was born at Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire c. 1889, the youngest son and seventh child of William Kemp Hall and his wife Martha Ann. His father was a Nottinghamshire farmer, born in nearby Gunthorpe, and in 1881 was farming 160 acres employing 2 labourers and 3 boys; the family then also employed two servants. His mother was born in Marylebone in London. In 1911 George Hall’s elder brothers Thomas and William were lace warehousemen, as they had been in 1901, and his nearest brother John was a wood carver. George Hall, then aged 21, was working as a clerk in business manufacturing sack and twine. The family had by then moved into an eight room house at 17 Chawforth Road in Nottingham, William Hall having retired from farming.

In the Easter term of 1913 George Hall junior matriculated at Durham University as an Arts (in litteris antiquis) student. He joined Hatfield Hall and was active in his college over the succeeding two years, serving as Hatfield’s Union Society Representative, and sat on committees of the university’s Choral, Union and Debating Societies. He was also captain of Hatfield’s cricket team in 1915, his final year. Having passed all his exams, on 22 June 1915 he was awarded his B.A.

He enlisted that winter on 10 December 1915 and was placed in the Army Reserve. He then went on to work as a shell inspector for Armstrong Whitworth until he was mobilised on 6 March 1917 and enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company. He served in France from 19 June 1917, with the 1^st and then from 12 July the 2^nd Battalion H.A.C., A Company, part of 22^nd Brigade 7^th Division. He was killed in the field within two months on 8 October. His unit was then fighting near Polderhoek, east of Ypres (WO 95/1662) in operations which formed part of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Private George Hall has no known grave, and consequently his sacrifice is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial. His name is also recorded in St Giles’ Church and the war memorial at West Bridgford, and on a plaque in the chapel of Hatfield College.