COOKE, George

George was born 1879 in Newport to Hugh & Henrietta (nee COTTLE) COOKE. In 1881 the family were living at 3 Chain Lane in Newport. In 1904 he married Jessie JONES at the Newport Registry Office, who was living at Kington Cottage, Tennyson Road, Freshwater around the time of George’s death. Before the War, George was a Manager at an Upholsterers & enlisted at Parkhurst.

George, aged 37, was Killed in Action on the first day of The Battle of The Somme on the 1st of July 1916. He was originally buried on the battlefield close to where he fell & later exhumed, identified by from his groundsheet, & reburied in Serre Road No.1 Cemetery in France on the 17th of August 1922. George now rests beneath a Commission Headstone alongside 2,425 of his First World War comrades, of whom 1,728 remain unidentified.

George is also remembered on the Newport Borough War Memorial.