| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information
Edward Hall was a gardener who lived at Southfield House, Butt Lane, in Beverley. On 5 Oct 1916 he was called up to the army and on 6 Oct arrived at the training camp at Ripon. It had a large military hospital with 670 beds. He served as a private in “N” Company of the Royal Army Medical Corps. On 9 October he was found drowned in the River Skell. The circumstances of his death are not known: his army documents refer to his death but there is no indication that any inquiry was launched into his death, nor any indication of suspicious circumstances. His body was returned to Beverley and he is buried at St Martin’s cemetery on Queensgate. He is remembered on the Hengate War Memorial and on the Minster Memorial. His resting place is classified as a war grave but he does not have the usual headstone, possibly because his baby daughter Elise, died, aged one year old, a few weeks later on 27 Oct 1916 and was buried next to him and is remembered on the headstone.
Edward was born in Kirkburn, south of Driffield, at the end of 1889. He was one of five children born to John Hall a gardener, from Driffield, and his wife, Sarah Jane Hall. The family later moved to Lund and belonged to the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Nothing is known of Edward’s upbringing. The family moved on to Tickton and at the time of World War 1 his widowed mother lived at 36 Norwood Grove in Beverley. His sister, Alberta, was a domestic servant at Tickton Grange. Edward also became a gardener (as did his two brothers) and is recorded in the 1911 census as living and working at South Cave as an assistant gardener with a Mr Ely. At an unknown later date he moved to Beverley. On 15 Jun 1915 he married Florence Mary Estill at Brompton Parish Church, near Scarborough. Their only child, Elise Adelaide, was born on 20 Sep 1915
Includes information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |