S/27052 Rfm George W H Lovelock, 11th Bn, Rifle Brigade

Nearly seven months after the Armistice had been declared, S/27052 Rifleman George Wilfred Hatton Lovelock of the 11th Battalion, Rifle Brigade, died of wounds in England.

George Lovelock was born in West Ham and was living at 160 Crownfield Road, Leyton when he enlisted. He was conscripted into the army on the 8th July 1916 and originally given the number S/24145. He was 33 years old and working as a carman.

Shortly after joining the Rifle Brigade he was transferred to the 112th Training Reserve Battalion (1st September 1916) and given a new number. The following month, on the 28th October 1916 - he was transferred back to the Rifle Brigade and given another number S/27052.

George was a married man and had two daughters at the time of his enlistment. A third daughter would be born on the 30th September 1916. He embarked at Southampton as an 11th Battalion man on the 2nd November 1916 and arrived at Havre the following day. He was immediately posted to the 8th Battalion, Rifle Brigade and subsequently attached (from 5th April 1917) to 176 Company, Royal Engineers. He was posted back to the 11th Battalion on the 14th September 1917.

George's service record indicates that he received a gunshot wound to his lower jaw on the 25th March 1918 and that he was taken Prisoner of War. His fate was obviously unknown at the time because his service record states "killed in action between 20th March 1918 and 1st April 1918". This was subsequently scored through, a subsequent note recording, "P of War, Limburg".

He died at 9.45am on the 2nd June 1919 at The Queen's Hospital in Sidcup Kent as a result of his facial wound and pneumonia. The hospital was "developed as the First World War's major centre for facial and plastic surgery, largely through the efforts of Harold Gillies. Opened in 1917, the hospital and its associated convalescent hospitals provided over 1,000 beds, and between 1917 and 1921 admitted in excess of 5,000 servicemen." [Wikipedia].

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records that George was 36 years old when he died and that he was the "son of George and Esther Lovelock of Stratford, and the husband of Emma Elizabeth Lovelock of 160 Crownfield Road, Leyton, London." He is buried in Chislehurst Cemetery in Kent.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry (MIC, WO 363)
Soldiers Died in The Great War
Army Service Numbers
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Photo of unknown patient and medical team at Queen's Hospital, courtesy of the Gillies Archive.