Lance Corporal. 9th Battalion, Prince of Wales’ Own West Yorkshire Regiment. Service number 28670.
Early life:
George was born in early 1897 and his birth was registered in Dewsbury. His parents were George and Hannah Roe and they lived in the White Lee area just a mile or so to the North East of Heckmondwike. They had been married for twenty years and already had six children when George was born.
George was baptised on 30th May 1897 aged 15 weeks, at the Methodist Free United Chapel (possibly the Mount Zion Chapel) The building still exists and is now used as a day nursery.
Calculating backwards from his baptism, this puts his birthday on or around 15th February 1897.
The family were living at White Lee, on the Old Birstall and Huddersfield Road in the 1891 census, six years before George junior was born. George and Hannah had six children who were Ada, Alice, Herbert, Alfred and Ann.
In the 1901 census George was aged four years and living with his parents and six siblings before George was born and later on they were at White Lee, where they were resident in the 1901 census. Their father George was a card cleaner in wool combing. We can’t be sure exactly where he worked, but locally there was New Brighton Mill which was a woollen mill, but there were several local mills making shoddy and mungo which were poorer quality products made from reclaimed wool waste. These mills were called Ridings, Chapel Lane, Moorfield, and Longfield Mills and all were within easy walking distance from the family home.
Father George was still a card cleaner in 1911 and the family had not moved house since the previous census. George junior was fourteen years old and was employed as a tailor’s apprentice. His elder siblings all seemed to be employed in the textile industry, with Alice and Ada who were yarn spinners. The exception being Arthur who was a clerk at a local colliery, which would have been White Lee Colliery or Roche Colliery, both of which were fairly near to home.
War service:
We don’t have a date of enlistment for George but his soldier’s effects shows his father George received a war gratuity of £3, which equates to him serving for less than 12 months. Since he is said to have served for a similar length of time to Lance Corporal William Roe of Oakworth, whom we know was sent for in April 1916, this suggests that George enlisted at the same time. Giving them both a length of service of nine or ten months before they were killed together. Their regimental numbers are also very close together, being 28760 for George and 28681 for William.
Keighley News report 24th February 1917:
OAKWORTH. “THE LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE.”
The “Long arm of coincidence” has seldom stretched further during the war than in the case of two soldiers named Roe – one, Will Roe, of Bogthorn, Oakworth; the other, George Roe, of White Lea, Heckmondwike. They had no traceable relationship, both were 20 years of age, both worked for a co-operative society; joined the colours on the same day, were drafted to the same regiment, became chums, received their lance-corporal stripe on the same day, were buried by the same shell on one occasion, and met their death at the same moment by another shell last month.
The 9th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment War Diary for January 1917:
BEAUCOURT
BEAUMONT HAMEL
17th:
Left sector was ordered to advance into line, taking some German dugouts around ARTILLERY ALLEY & PUISIEUX ROAD and establish posts at heads of LONG BANKS in R.1.d. Attack commenced on morning of 17th at 6.35 am. The Battalion being in support to 6th York and Lancaster regiment.
All objectives were taken and consolidated, no counter attack was made by Germans.
18th:
Night passed quietly.
Remembrance:
Note: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has nine men for the 9th Bn. West Yorkshire Regiment who were killed in action on this date. All are named on the Thiepval Memorial. These nine men are:
40929 Private James Claven.
33461 Lance Corporal Walter Hodgson.
28265 Private Frank Kershaw aged 37.
22235 Corporal Ernest Methley aged 20.
19453 Private Samuel Pinches.
45738 Private Percy Ranger.
28670 Lance Corporal George Roe aged 19.
28681 Lance Corporal William Roe aged 18.
45740 Private Thomas Sains.
It’s possible that Lance Corporal George Roe is the ‘Roe, George’ named on the Heckmondwike War Memorial.
