George Bickers

681817 Bombardier George Bickers, A Battery, Royal Field Artillery, 276 Brigade, 55th (West Lancashire Division, Territorial), died of wounds ‘France and Flanders', 20 May 1918, aged 31, when the ‘Kaiser/Ludendorff Offensive' drove the Allies back towards Paris, probably the most serious setback of the war. His Battery was equipped with 18-pounders and 4.5 inch howitzers. The Division fought a rearguard at Hazebrouck (see Frederick Bizzell) in mid-April. He was buried at Pernes British War Cemetery, Pas de Calais, set up in April 1918 when four Casualty Clearing Stations, two Canadian (1st and 4th) and two British (6th and 22nd) had to fall back on Pernes in the face of the German advance. They buried over one thousand dead in the new cemetery.

According to the Censuses, George was born in Wheatley in 1887. His parents were George Bickers and Emily Eliza Parish who had married at Marylebone Road, Westminster. In 1891 the family were living in St George Hanover Square, London, where George senior was a servant. In 1901 they had moved to Beccles in Suffolk and George senior gave his occupation as ‘groom at hotel'. George junior married Minnie Maria Crisp in 1909 in Wangford and the 1911 census shows that he was working as a wood sawyer.