George Edwin Ellison

File:George E Ellison.jpg

Pte. George Edward Ellison

George Edwin Ellison (1878 – 11 November 1918) was the last British soldier to be killed in the First World War.

Biography

Ellison came from Leeds, England. Early in his life, he joined the army as a regular soldier, but had left by 1912 when he got married to Hannah Maria Burgan and had become a coal miner. Sometime just before the outbreak of war he was recalled to the army, joining the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, serving in the army at the start of the war. He fought at the Battle of Mons in 1914, and several other battles including the Battle of Ypres, Battle of Armentières, Battle of La Basee, Battle of Lens, Battle of Loos, and Battle of Cambrai on the Western Front. He was killed an hour and a half before the armistice, on a patrol on the outskirts of Mons, Belgium.

Ellison is buried in the St Symphorien military cemetery, just southeast of Mons. Coincidentally, and in large part due to Mons being lost in the very opening stages of the war and regained at the very end (from the British perspective), his grave faces that of John Parr, the first British soldier killed during the Great War.

He was survived by Hannah and a son, James Cornelius, just 5 days short of his fifth birthday when his father was killed. At least two grandchildren of his were alive as of 2008.

See also

• Armistice with Germany: Last casualties

Further reading

• Michael Palin, Remembering Private Ellison, BBC News, 29 October 2008. Retrieved 24 April 2011
• Peter Lazenby, Leeds soldier who was last to die in Great War, Yorkshire Evening Post, 7 November 2008. Retrieved 24 April 2011