Pte 31188 George Edwin Tillinghast

• Age: 25
• From: London
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: A.38

George Edwin Tillinghast was born in Islington, London in 1891, the son of William Charles Tillinghast and Hannah Docrwra (nee Sadler) who were married in December 1888. Hannah had been married to Thomas Docwra who died earlier in 1888.

At the time of the 1901 census, the family lived at 19 Greenfield Terrace, Cheadle in Cheshire.

William was 34 and working as a brush maker, Hannah was 47 and at home. The couple had three children – Frederick aged 11, George aged 9 and Beatrice aged 5. They had another son Thomas who had died aged just 3 in 1895. Both William and Hannah had been born in London, as had Frederick and George, but Beatrice’s birthplace is Manchester so the family must have moved from London between 1892 and 1896.

His parents in 1911 are living with 15 year old Beatrice at 124 Hart St, Southport. Mother Hannah died shortly after the census at the age of 54. George is not present in the England census in 1911, but he is found recorded on the crew list of a cargo ship called the SS Ussa, with previous service on the SS Taff. George’s brother Frederick is living in a boarding house in Upper Parliament Street, Liverpool and working as a grocers assistant. Their parents are living at 124 Hart Street, Southport with their daughter Beatrice. William is now working as a coach painter for a motor manufacturer.

George enlisted in Liverpool was serving with the 17th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 31188 when he was killed in action, aged 25, on 09/04/1917. This was the opening day of the Battle of Arras. 

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

George Edwin now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery in France.

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.

Liverpool Echo 7th May 1917

TILLINGHAST - April 9, killed in action in his 26th year, George Edwin TILLINGHAST (K.L.R.), late of 20 Kenyon Road, Wavertree, youngest son of W.C. Tillinghast and the late Hannah Tillinghast of 97 Gladstone Road, Liverpool. Deeply mourned by Father, Brother and Sister.

TILLINGHAST - April 9, killed in action, George Edwin Tillinghast - Much respected by all at 20 Kenyon Road, Wavertree and 354 Edge Lane, Liverpool.

Liverpool Echo 9th May 1917

TILLINGHAST - In loving memory of Private G. E. TILLINGHAST, K.L.R., killed in action, April 9, 1917. - Sadly missed by Father, Sister and Brother.

Liverpool Echo 9th April 1918

TILLINGHAST - In loving memory of Private G. E. TILLINGHAST, K.L.R., killed in action, April 9, 1917. - Sadly missed by Father, Sister and Brother.

He is commemorated on the Memorial at St Cyprian and Christ Church, Durning Road, Liverpool.

Soldiers Effects and Pension to father William Charles.

Father William, dob 11th Oct 1868, is found on the 1939 register at 19 Kimberley St, Upper Parliament, Liverpool with son Frederick W, and died in 1940 aged 72 and was buried at Allerton Cemetery on the 1st Nov 1940.

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