8999 PRIVATE EDWARD GEORGE GRICE
2ND BATTALION, SUFFOLK REGIMENT
DIED OF WOUNDS
4TH MARCH 1915
AGE 19 YEARS
Edward, like his brother Albert (see previous) was born in the village of Blyford, before moving to the neighbouring village of Holton which lies to the north-east of Halesworth. Here they would spend their formative years. Born in the first quarter of 1895 to Edward, whose occupation, as listed in the 1911 Census, was that of a scavenger employed by the local Urban Council, and his then wife who is believed to have been Elizabeth (née Smith). They had married in her hometown of Woodbridge in 1891. In 1898 Elizabeth passed away, leaving John to bring up his two young sons, with both boys attending the village school. By 1909 Edward, now aged around fourteen years, had completed his education and found work as an errand boy for a local farm manager. As can be seen in our tribute to his older brother Albert, who had left the family home in 1912 to join the army, Edward must have also felt the need to do the same, possibly due to their father John having remarried three years previously to Violet Keeble who then, with her young daughter Nerva had moved into the family home. There shortly after, she gave birth to a half-brother Richard. At that time they were all living in a small cottage next to the Holton Post Office (see postcard). Edward now aged eighteen years may have felt it was now time to follow his brother’s lead in joining the Regular Army.
Although very little of his military service records have survived, by tracing his army regimental number we learn that he had travelled to Ipswich to enlist as 8999, a Private soldier in the Suffolk Regiment, sometime in the summer of 1914. Little would he have realised at that time that, in a matter of weeks, his country would be at war. When the declaration of war was announced on 4th August, Edward would have still been in training at the Suffolk Regimental Depot in Bury St Edmunds. While the 2nd Battalion, which he was destined to join, had spent the previous eleven months stationed at the Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, within hours of the war being declared they were preparing to take their place in the British Expeditionary Force, then fighting in France. Their first move was to Dublin where they were eventually transported to the French port city of Le Havre. Being almost a thousand strong with all their stores and transport, their move was carried out on two separate sailings.
After the Battalion reassembled on 16th August, they were then despatched by troop trains to the town of Le Cateau close to the French-Belgian border, which they crossed to take up positions along the Mons-Condé canal. Here, after several brief contacts with the advancing German troops, they received the order to withdraw back over the ground they so recently had marched across to take up their defensive positions. Eventually, the 2nd Suffolks arrived back in the area of Le Cateau, where they then received orders that from that point there would be no further retirement. However, at 6am on 26th August the German artillery began a heavy barrage onto the Battalion’s positions. This killed and wounded several men, including their Commanding Officer, Lieut. Colonel C.A.H. Brett, who was mortally wounded. This artillery fire was quickly followed by the enemy’s infantry probing their line in preparation for a full-scale attack, which they mounted along the Suffolk’s entire front. Finding a gap on the battalion’s right flank, the Germans then managed to get to the rear of their defences and to cut off their line of retreat. For the majority of those who were not able to withdraw, including many who had been wounded, this would lead to their spending the next four years as prisoners of war. Of the seven hundred and twenty Officers and men lost to the 2nd Suffolks during the period between the 21st to the 26th August 1914 at least one of them had been a Halesworth lad, being 6328, Private Frederick Stannard of 2 Wissett Road, who, along with many of his comrades, was captured and did not return to the town until the 18th November 1918.
As the news of the losses suffered by the 2nd Suffolks reached the Depot in Bury St Edmunds, the staff there would have been attempting to complete the recruit training, while processing returning reservists, as well as the hundreds of eager young men wishing to join the fight. On 27th December 1914, Edward, with a party of casualty replacements, landed in France to join the remnants of the 2nd Suffolks now occupying trenches in the Flanders region of Belgium, considered at that time to be a quiet sector which would allow them to recover and await reinforcements. The new year had begun with heavy rainstorms. The flat landscape quickly became waterlogged with the soldiers spending many hours up to their knees in water. This then led many of the troops to suffer from ‘Trench Foot’, a common complaint that many of them would suffer from over the following years.
In the Suffolk Regimental History of the Great War published in 1928, it is recorded that, at the beginning of March 1915, the 2nd Suffolks were entrenched in the area of the Belgian town of Vierstraat. It was while here that Edward met his end, on the 4th day of the month, having been on the Continent for just over nine weeks. On 16th March, the Halesworth Times newspaper, reporting his death, mentioned in an article that John, Edward’s father, had received a letter of condolence from his platoon Officer in which he had described how his son, with a further three of his comrades, had suffered fatal injuries from a bursting artillery shell. Although Edward had immediately been transported to the No.8 Casualty Clearing Station, he had sadly died of his wounds. As is mentioned in his brother Albert’s story, the day of his young brother’s death was the exact day on which he had landed in France. Another sad coincidence was the manner of their deaths, having both suffered from the effects of a bursting artillery shell.
On 9th July 1915, John received all of the monies owed after his son’s death, amounting to £6.6s.3d (£6.31p) with a further gratuity paid in June 1919 of £3.0s.0d. In April of 1928, with John now in his seventy-second year and possibly not able to work, his son’s stepmother Violet applied to the Military Pensions Office to be considered for a belated pension for the loss of his two sons. From information available it is not known if she was successful. If not, how they would have managed up until his death in 1956 can only be imagined.
As well as the above payments John would have been entitled to claim Edward’s medal awards of the 1915 Star Trio with his named memorial plaque and scroll.
The location of these medals is not known.
On the anniversary of Edward’s death, John, still grieving for the loss of his two sons had this memorial verse printed in the Halesworth Times on 6th May 1919.
Killed in action, our hearts are sore
For King and Country, we miss them more,
Their tender smiles, their loving faces,
No one on earth can fill their places.
This postcard shows the Holton Post Office during the Great War, with soldiers from the Royal Army Medical Corps, Edward and his family lived in one of the cottages adjacent to it.