Family :

Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

12 - 15 September 1914. Following the defeat and retreat from the Marne, the German army stood and defended the next defensible river, the Aisne. This offered significant defensive potential on the high bluffs overlooking the river but the BEF succeeded in pushing back the Germans. The first examples of trench warfare emerged on the Aisne as trenches became necessary to offer protection from concentrated artillery barrages.

Detail :

Lieutenant George Prescott BLACKALL-SIMONDS of the 2nd Battalion, South Wales Borderers was the son of George Simonds the well known sculptor. He was his only son, and was killed in France in the first few weeks of the Great War. Simonds Snr came out of retirement to design the Bradfield War Memorial in 1922. Lieutenant George Prescott Blackall-Simonds saw service in South African War as a railway staff officer. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at La Ferte sous Jouarre. He was aged 33 when he died. The War Diary of the battalion for 26/9/14 describes the circumstances. ‘At 4.15am Germans attacked. The Main attack apparently against my regiment, which is the left of our line. D and A Companies in the trenches. B and C hustled up to support, and soon the whole place alive with bullets. News comes that they are trying to work round our left. The CO asked the Welsh Regiment to deal with this, which it did. Poor D Company had to face the music more than anyone else. Presently the news comes that the Germans are in a quarry in the middle of our line, i.e. that our line was pierced. C Company drove them clean out. About 3pm, things began to quieten down, D and A companies had done their share of the work on the right and left. We were able to reorganise more or less, except for D Company’s far advanced trenches, and those we searched at night and found James wounded, Sills and Welby killed. Total casualties: Killed Welby, Simonds, Coker, Sills and 86 men; wounded: Pritchard, James and Gwynn slightly, and 95 men; and missing 12. These 12 were of D Company, and apparently surrendered. May they be spared to reach England again and be tried by court martial and get what they deserve. Never has the 24th surrendered yet, and in spite of casualties the rest of the Regiment stuck to it and fought as Englishman and 24th men could fight. We are now left with three Officers each in three companies, and only two in the fourth, instead of six in each. A sad, sad business, but everyone played up, and as the French say, ‘Qui perd, gagne’. We have lost men and officers, but have again won a name for doing what it is our duty to do and in this case we held a very important line without giving a yard’. Of the officers mentioned in the War Diary only one (Coker) has a known grave. That the others are commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at La Ferte sous Jouarre is testament to the severity and confusion of the fighting. These men of the 2/South Wales Borderers were professional soldiers and ‘Old Contemptibles’ that highly professional army that was all but destroyed by the end of 1914.

Masonic :

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley