Private GEORGE THOMAS LEVER
11, Milverton Road, Winchester
Service number 7009. 1st Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment.
Killed in Action, Belgium, 19 October 1914
Life Summary
George Thomas Lever was born on 6 September 1885 in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey. He moved to Winchester after enlisting with the Hampshire Regiment in the early 1900s. George married a Winchester girl but his family life was blighted by the early deaths of two daughters and also of his wife due to complications in childbirth. George was recalled to military service as a Reservist in August 1914 and killed in action two months later.
Family Background
George’s father, Robert, was born in 1859 in Fisherton Anger, Salisbury, the son of James and Caroline Lever. James, a boot and shoemaker, had been born in Ansty, Wiltshire, around 1821 and Caroline in Tisbury, Wiltshire, some eight years later. George’s mother was born Eliza Allen in Reigate, Surrey, in 1857. Her father, Robert, was born in Kennington, south London, around 1829 and worked as a labourer. Eliza’s mother, Sarah, was also born in Surrey in about 1826.
Robert and Eliza married on 20 October 1878 at the Parish Church in Reigate. In the 1881 Census the couple were living in Caterham, Surrey, where Robert worked as an attendant at the town’s asylum. Their first son, Robert Arthur, was born in Caterham in 1881. The following year Robert secured a job as a carriage cleaner with London and South Western Railway earning 15 shillings a week.
Robert’s new job involved him working in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, where the Lever’s second son, William, was born in 1882. George arrived three years later and was baptised on 10 February 1886. In 1891 the family were living at 18, Hudson Road, Kingston, with Robert working as a railway porter.
ln March 1892 Eliza Lever gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth, but the child died at just a few weeks old on 17 May. Eliza herself passed away early in 1893 when George was seven. It appears that over the next few years he and his brothers were cared for by their father who eventually remarried in 1898.
Robert’s new wife, Selina Eidmann, had been born in Dalston, Middlesex, in 1860. In 1881 Selina was living with her widowed mother in Leyton, Essex, and working as an English and music teacher. In 1901 Robert and Selina were living in St Paul’s Road, Bournemouth, with her mother and two boarders. However, neither George, then aged 15, nor his two brothers were recorded as living at the house.
George Lever joined the Army in November 1903, soon after his 18th birthday. He enlisted with the Hampshire Regiment with the service number 7009, probably for a period of seven years with another five as a Reservist. According to the Hampshire Regimental Journal of January 1906 he received a first Good Conduct Badge while serving with the 2nd Battalion. In December, the same year he was awarded the same badge by the 1st Battalion.
On 17 June 1906 George married Mary Agnes Holt at St Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, Jewry Street, Winchester. It is possible the couple had met while George was stationed at the regimental barracks in the city. Mary was born in Winchester in 1886, the daughter of Samuel and Maria Holt. Samuel, listed as an Army pensioner in the 1901 Census, had also been born in Winchester in around 1847. Maria was from Galway, Ireland. The couple, who also had two sons, lived at 25, Middle Brook Street, Winchester.
Just a few months after her wedding, Mary Lever gave birth to a daughter, but the child died shortly afterwards. A son, George Jnr, was born safely in Winchester on 16 March 1908, but a second daughter, Lily, born on 12 March 1909, died of convulsions at just five days old. To complete the tragedy, Mary Lever also died on 21 March from puerperal fever contracted during childbirth. Her husband was at her bedside when she passed away. George Lever left the Army in 1910 and the following year was working as a builder’s labourer and living with his in-laws and young son at 20, Water Lane, Winchester. However, further misfortune hit the family when Mary’s father, Samuel Holt, died, aged 54, that year.
11, Milverton Road, Winchester – the home of George Lever’s mother-in-law
Maria Holt from 1915-17 and his address in the WWSR
George’s address in the Winchester War Service Register (WWSR) is 11, Milverton Road, Fulflood. There is no Lever at that address in the 1914 Warren’s Directory, but the 1915, 1916 and 1917 volumes show a Mrs Holt living there. This is almost certainly George’s mother-in-law Maria who would have ensured that his name appeared on the memorial at St Paul’s church after the war.
Maria Holt’s home at 11, Milverton Road was built and owned by the Winchester Working Men’s Housing Society which had been founded in 1911 to provide affordable homes for rent in the city. One of 82 houses in Milverton Road, Greenhill Road and Cheriton Road, it was first rented out in 1912. Initially rents were charged from six shillings to 8/6d per week. The homes, which still stand today, were luxurious compared to the slums in the Brooks area of the city centre at the time and all had their own gas supply. In March 1912, the Hampshire Chronicle reported the housing was for ‘the working classes, on a breezy hillside’.
Great War Record
The 1st Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment on 23 August 1914, the day before
they embarked for France. Private George Lever is somewhere among
their ranks (Photo: Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum)
Although no longer a full-time soldier in August 1914, George was still a Reservist and was immediately called up for military service when Britain went to war. According to the WWSR he enlisted on 1 October 1914, but this is contradicted by his Medal Index Card which states that he entered a theatre of war with the 1st Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment on 24 August 1914. This is confirmed by the inclusion of George’s name on the board in the Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum commemorating the officers and men of the 1st Battalion entitled to the 1914 Star. George therefore was an ‘Old Contemptible’, one of that elite band of British Regular Army soldiers who were the first to see action in the Great War.
George fought with the 1st Hampshires at the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August 1914 after the British and French retreat from Mons three days earlier. Despite the 7,812 British casualties at Le Cateau, George came through unscathed and took part in the subsequent Allied retreat to the River Marne. In early September, as the tide of the war turned, the Hampshires, part of 11th Brigade in 4th Division, re-crossed the Marne and joined in the Allied pursuit of the German army to the River Aisne.
On 12 September the 1st Hampshires led 11th Brigade’s crossing of the Aisne and only narrowly failed to gain a decisive victory over the German army. This effectively marked the end of the war of movement on the Western Front and the beginning of four years of trench warfare. On 12 October the 1st Hampshires transferred to Flanders where they were ordered to occupy Nieppe on the River Lys.
Quite how and when George Lever met his death is unclear. The WWSR has him ‘Missing (believed killed), Belgium, Oct. 3, 1914’. However, on that date the battalion was still working on improving defences on the Aisne and, according to the unit’s war diary, was ‘unmolested by the enemy’. George’s listing in Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919 states that he was killed in action on 19 October and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website lists him as dying on the same day. The Hampshire Regimental Journal states that he went missing on 19 October while his Medal Index Card lists him as ‘Presumed Dead’.
The 1st Battalion War Diary entry for 19 October is brief and states merely that the unit retired from the town of Armentieres due to heavy German shelling. The entry for the following day describes how a Company commander, Major P. Connellan, and one other unnamed soldier were killed. Given the virtual unanimity among the various sources on the date of George’s death, the most likely explanation is that he was killed by shellfire on the retreat from Armentieres and his body never found. George Lever was 29 years old when he died. The Registers of Soldiers Effects 1901-1929 indicates that £2 17s 1d was paid to his mother-in-law in May 1916 for the benefit of his son, George Jnr. A war gratuity of £5 was also paid out in 1919.
Family after the Great War
On 25 April 1931 George Lever Jnr married Olive Young at St Peter’s Church, Jewry Street, Winchester, the church where his parents had married 25 years earlier. Olive gave birth to three sons in Winchester: Robert (1934-1979), William (1935-2015) and John (1940-1986). George Jnr died in Winchester in 1973, aged 65, and Olive in March 1990 at the age of 81.
George Lever’s father died in Bournemouth in 1933, aged 74. His brother Robert worked as a carter and married Kate Joynes in Christchurch, Dorset, in 1901. In 1911 the couple were living in Bournemouth, with their four daughters. A Robert Arthur Lever served as a transport corporal in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Great War, but it has not been possible to establish whether this was George’s brother. Robert is believed to have died in Epsom, Surrey, in 1956 at the age of 75. George’s other brother, William, married Fanny Emily Groves on the Isle of Wight in 1908. The couple lived on the island for many years and had four daughters and a son. It is not known whether William served in the Great War. He died in Bournemouth in 1957, aged 75.
Medals and Memorials for George Thomas Lever
Private George Thomas Lever was entitled to the 1914 (Mons) Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. He is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial, Comines-Warneton, Hainaut, Belgium (PR. Panel 6) and on the memorials at St Matthew’s and St Paul’s churches, Winchester. His name also appears on the 1st Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment’s Roll of Officers, NCOs and men who were entitled to the 1914 Star. This is held in the Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum, Winchester.