Name
George Horace Hookham
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
21/04/1915
23
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
13217
Bedfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
Panel 31 and 33
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Rickmansworth Urban District Memorial,
St. Mary’s Church Memorial, Rickmansworth,
Christ Church Memorial, Chorleywood,
Memorial Hall Plaque, Chorleywood
Pre War
George was born in Rickmansworth on the 13th of April 1892 and baptised there on the 21st of April. His parents were George and Eliza (nee Gibbard) Hookham, George Senior being a Bricklayer.
In 1901 they were at 6 Bury Lane Place with six children and in 1911 still in Bury Lane, but now with eight children. George’s cousin Ernest Hookham was killed in action on the 12th of March 1917.
George senior is thought to be the brother of Anne Alice (nee Hookham) Dewdney whose son William Ewart was killed on the 3rd of September 1917.
Recorded as enlisting in Marylebone, London.
Wartime Service
A regular army battalion based in Ireland when war broke out but immediately sent to France, landing the 16th of August 1914 as part of 15th Brigade 5th Division.
They took part in the early engagements including Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne, the Aisne, LA Bassee and First Ypres. Having moved to the Ypres salient in early 1915 the Division was engaged in the defence of Hill 60 at Second Ypres during April and May. Hill 60 was a low ridge facing the Allied trenches in the Zillebeke region in the southwest of Ypres and the Division suffered horrendous losses in more than four weeks of heavy fighting. It was here that George lost his life on the 21st of April.
Additional Information
George is also commemorated on the family headstone in Rickmansworth (Chorley Road) Cemetery. His part of the inscription reads:
ALSO PTE. GEORGE HOOKHAM.
SON OF THE ABOVE (Eliza Hookham]
KILLED IN FRANCE, APRIL 1915. AGED 23 YEARS.
SON OF THE ABOVE (Eliza Hookham]
KILLED IN FRANCE, APRIL 1915. AGED 23 YEARS.
Acknowledgments
Malcolm Lennox, Tanya Britton, Our Village in the Great War, Mike Collins
