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About
233453L/Cpl. George Frederick Swales
British Army 217th Coy. Machine Gun Corps
from:Kingston-Upon-Hull
(d.23rd Sep 1917 )
George F Swales was my Grandfather. Sadly, he was killed before my mother was 3 years old, so she nor I, never knew him. He married my Grandmother in Sept 1914, and a few months later she gave birth to my mother in early December 1914, a few days before her own 18th birthday. Obviously this was a scandalous event in 1914, made worse by the fact that she was a washerwomen's daughter and he was the son of a cabinet maker and undertaker in a well established family undertakers business in Hull. Some class differences may have been at work but I do not know. I was always aware that my real Grandfather was killed in the war and my mother never knew him, but I was never aware of any of his family visiting us, perhaps strange considering that, although their son had been killed, he had left a child, their grandchild, my mother. I believe that they maybe did visit at first but perhaps became estranged when my Grandmother remarried in about 1922.
I feel strongly that his descendants, especially me as one of his grandsons, should make an effort to remember the ultimate sacrifice he made for King and Country. I am saddened that he has no grave and I cannot find out more about his death, which I know is listed as 23rd of Sept 1917. I believe he must therefore have been killed during the Battle of the Menin Road, called the Third Battle of Ypres, because that is where the 217th Coy of the MGC was at that time. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, I will remember him.
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