Site Home
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Great War Home
Search
Add Stories & Photos
Library
Help & FAQs
Features
Allied Army
Day by Day
RFC & RAF
Prisoners of War
War at Sea
Training for War
The Battles
Those Who Served
Hospitals
Civilian Service
Women at War
The War Effort
Central Powers Army
Central Powers Navy
Imperial Air Service
Library
World War Two
Submissions
Add Stories & Photos
Time Capsule
Information
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Our Facebook Page
Volunteering
News
Events
Contact us
Great War Books
About
247405Cpl. Geoffrey Hodge
British Army 9th Btn. Kings Royal Rifle Corps
from:Trevidgoe Farm, Withiel, Cornwall
(d.21st March 1918)
Geoffrey Hodge was born on the 27th February 1896, Geoff was the youngest child of William and Beatrice Hodge of Trevidgoe Farm, Withiel, Cornwall. His siblings were Marjorie, William (Guy), Beatrice, and Edward (Ted). On the outbreak of the First World War, Geoff and his brother Ted declared that as soon as the harvest was over they would leave the family farm and join up. They traveled to Plymouth together to do so, and in 1915 both brothers were serving in France.
Geoff served with the 9th Battalion Kings Royal Rifle Corps, surviving the majority of the war unscathed, being promoted to the rank of Corporal, and outliving his brother Ted, who died of wounds received at the Battle of Loos in 1915 while serving with the 9th Bn. Devonshire Regiment. (See separate listing).
During the first day of the Kaiserslacht, the 1918 German Spring Offensive, Geoff was reported missing. His family didn't hear news of him for nine months, until after the armistice. In December 1918, Geoff's mother received a letter from The Enquiry Department for Wounded and Missing, informing her that a prisoner of war, Lance Corporal H. Bayliss, had returned to France with the news that Geoff had been killed at the time that he himself had been taken prisoner
According to Bayliss, Geoff was killed on the 21st March, 1918. He was aged just 22. His body was never found. Geoff is commemorated on a panel of Pozieres memorial, in France. Previously, the name which honours Geoff's memory had been misspelt as Hodges, however the Commonwealth War Graves Commission kindly rectified this mistake in 2008. The outline of the extra s can still be faintly seen.
Geoff is also recorded on the Roll of Honour in Winchester Cathedral - Winchester being the home of his regiment. He was awarded the British War Medal and Allied Victory Medal, along with a Bronze Death Plaque.
Both Geoff and his brother Ted were killed in the First World War. Their eldest brother (and their parents only surviving son), Guy (my Great Grandfather), had been unable to join up due to heart condition he'd had since birth. The family farm had to give up their horses to the war effort, a sacrifice from which Guy never recovered. At the death of his two brothers, Guy was forced to give up his studies to become a veterinary surgeon, and instead had to take on the family farm - which was sold a few years later, in 1922. One of Geoff's sisters, Beatrice, served as a nurse with the Red Cross during the war, and his oldest sister Marge lost her fiance as well as two brothers in the war she never married, and later became a schoolteacher in the local town, Bodmin.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.