30387 SERGEANT GEORGE MUTTITT
‘A’ COMPANY 9TH (SERVICE) BATTALION
LOYAL NORTH LANCASHIRE REGIMENT
KILLED IN ACTION
10TH APRIL 1918
AGE 25 YEARS
George Muttitt was the younger of another pair of brothers to lose their lives during the Great War. Born in Halesworth during the last quarter of 1892, he was the third child and son of William, a maltster’s labourer, and Laura (née Ingate). The family lived for many years in one of the workman’s cottages situated on the Broadway, which was then on the outskirts of the town. As with other boys of his age he would have attended the Boys School until around the time of his fourteenth birthday. On leaving he had found work as an assistant to one of the town’s butchers.
On the outbreak of World War One, George, now aged twenty-one, was one of the early volunteers to enlist after Lord Kitchener’s appeal for the formation of a new citizens army. The Halesworth Times newspaper of 15th September 1914 published an article in which they reported that during the previous week a large gathering had been held in the Market Place, where some seventy-two men from the town, including George, and others from the surrounding villages prepared to leave for war. After some patriotic speeches by local dignitaries, the men, under command of Colour Sergeant F Lambert, the local recruiting agent, marched to the Railway Station led by the town’s band and cheered all the way by local residents. How many of them could have imagined what the losses would be to these men, some of them mere boys, and how many would return home after four long years of warfare. Carried by special trains, their first real experience of military life would occur at Ipswich where, after a medical examination, they would have then received their soldier’s number and learn which Regiment they would serve with. George became 15199 a Private Soldier to serve in the 9th (Service) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment which was at that time being formed at the regimental depot in Bury Saint Edmunds. Over the following eleven months, while based at four different locations, they would receive their training in preparation for life in the front line.
At midnight on 30th August 1915, George, now trained and holding the rank of Corporal had, with the rest of the 9th Suffolks, landed at the French port of Boulogne while under the command of the 74th Brigade of the 24th Division. After their arrival they spent the next few days being moved from one area to another, with the majority of these moves being carried out on their feet while carrying all their arms and equipment, only moving under the cover of darkness and for the majority of the time in driving rain. By the fourth night they had arrived in the area of the French city of Bethune having covered over seventy miles since leaving the coast.
Another experience they yet had to endure was, that, unlike many of the Divisions which had arrived on the Continent earlier, units of their Division were not afforded the usual period of serving with more experienced troops in the front line before taking their place in mortal combat. In under four weeks they were preparing to take part in a major assault, later known as the Battle of Loos. At 8pm on the night of 25th September 1915, just over a year after leaving Halesworth to enlist, George and the 9th Suffolks formed up, with their comrades of the 11th Essex on their right to carry out an attack on the German line in the direction of Venin-le-Vicil. After having quickly gained ground by midnight their assault had been brought to a halt, with the men from East Anglia furiously digging in order to protect the land they had just captured. At 11.25am the following day, the 9th Suffolks were ordered forward once more which, it is reported, they carried out without any hesitation. However by 5.00pm, those units of their neighbouring Division began to give way. This then gave the German forces the ability to attack the 9th Suffolks from their left flank. Quickly moving up heavy machine guns the enemy poured fire into the Suffolks, causing many casualties during this, their first full-scale action. The regimental history of the Suffolk Regiment during the Great War, first published in 1928, records that “Just twenty-five days after landing in France the 9th Battalion were flung into a pitched battle that would have tried to the upmost the best trained infantry in the world“. Their first experience of fighting, by troops who were classed as partially trained infantrymen proved to have been a staggering ordeal. The losses for the battalion amounted to one hundred and thirty-five casualties in total, including another Halesworth lad, Cecil Ashford, who died of his wounds some days later. (See his story). This battle would also go down in the Suffolks’ history for, during it, the first of two Victoria Crosses awarded to the Suffolk regiment in World War One was awarded to Sergeant Arthur Saunders V.C. of the Battalion’s machine-gun section.
This then had been George and his comrade’s baptism of fire. Many more battles in which he would be involved lay ahead over the next thirty-two months, leading up to his death. During this time, it is believed, he would have received at least one period of home leave, as at some time he became engaged to be married to an unknown young lady. A major change for the men of the 9th Suffolks was to occur on 16th February 1918 when their Battalion was disbanded. This had become necessary due to the heavy losses suffered by all infantry regiments during the previous three years of bitter fighting. George, now a Sergeant with the new regimental number of 30387, and the remaining men of his Battalion were posted to join the 9th (Service) Battalion Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, which at that time was serving with the 74th Brigade of the 25th Division. It was with this new formation that George would meet his end, just eight weeks later.
On the 20th March 1918 the Germans began their last great offensive of the war. Their aim was, in one final push, to break through the Allied lines and then march on to capture the Channel ports, thereby halting reinforcements of men and the supply of stores from reaching the front. They also hoped to capture Paris, thereby forcing the French government to sue for peace.
During the first weeks of their advance, in several areas they were very successful, managing to break through in several places, including a section of the British line held by the Portuguese Corps, which after their nation’s declaration of war against Germany in March 1916, had sent troops to France in early 1917. On their arrival they had been placed under the command of and were equipped by the British First Army. On 9th April 1918 the Germans, after concentrating two solid days of heavy artillery fire into the Portuguese line, including many gas shells, for which they were ill prepared, pushed the southern European troops to one side, with the German troops surging forward, although somewhat hampered by the six thousand five hundred prisoners they had taken. While all of this fighting was taking place along many miles of the front, George and his comrades in the 25th Division were in reserve positions in the area around Pioegsteert Wood, when his 74th Brigade was detached to defend the crossing of the river Lys in the village of Sailly-sur-la-Lys. On their arrival close to their objective, they found that a large number of the German troops had beaten them to the crossing and had now reached the outskirts of the nearby town of Steenwerck. It was here, on the day of George’s death, that the 9th Loyals joined in a desperate fight to form a new line north of the town. The circumstances of George’s death are not known as the battle ebbed to and fro, but after the battle he was listed as missing presumed Killed In Action. In the Halesworth Times newspaper of 8th April 1919, a year after his loss, his parents placed a memorandum notice in which they stated that his fate remained unknown. This was then followed, some ten months later, by a further notice in the town’s newspaper of 25th February 1920 which explained that while the battlefields were being cleared George’s remains had been found and that he had now been laid to rest in the Croix-Du-Bac British Military Cemetery, Steenwerck. This latest news would hopefully have given the family some closure, as having lost his older brother Robert during August 1917, and with a third son Caleb now seeing service with the 2nd Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment, also in France, the final months of the war and the months to follow must have been a very stressful time for the family. Thankfully Caleb made it home.
On 29th March 1920, Laura, having been nominated as George’s next of kin, received a war gratuity payment of then not inconsiderable sum for that time of £33.11s.3d (£33.56p). However, due to the family’s circumstances, with the head of the house in full-time employment, they would not have been entitled to a pension. This had changed by 1926 as, with William now having reached the age of seventy-one years and possibly no longer able to carry out heavy work, Laura contacted the Ministry of Pensions, asking if they could be considered as now being entitled to a pension for the loss of their two sons. This was then granted so, from 15th May 1926, they received a weekly pension of 8s 6d (43p) with annual increases which they would receive for life. William, went on to live to the age of eighty-two, dying in 1936, with Laura passing away in 1940 aged eighty-one years.
As well as the gratuity they would also have been entitled to claim their son’s medal entitlement of the 1915 Star trio with named memorial plaque and scroll.
Today the plaque is in a private collection with the medal group location unknown.
