1st Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment
George Henry Saysum was born in Lydney in 1897, the son of William Saysum and his wife Martha (née Miles).
He was one of at least four children, having a brother (William) and sisters Elizabeth (known as Cissie) and Florence (Flo).
Prior to the Great War he was employed as a collier at Norchard Colliery, in the Forest of Dean.
He enlisted into the Gloucestershire Regiment at Coleford on or about 25 November 1914 and he was initially posted to the 7th Battalion, part of 39 Brigade, 13th Division.
Following a period of training at Basingstoke and Aldershot the battalion sailed from Avonmouth in June 1915, arriving at Gallipoli on the 19th of that month.
On 8 August the battalion took part, in the company of the New Zealanders, on the attack on the heights of Chunuk Bair, from trenches on Rhododendron Ridge. It was a disastrous attack, the battalion suffering 820 casualties, losing every officer, company sergeant major and quartermaster sergeant, to machine gun and artillery fire and in hand to hand fighting with bayonets.
Unfortunately no Army Service Records has survived for Private Saysum so it is not certain that he was wounded in this action but the casualty listing published in the Western Daily Press dated 4 October 1915 (and also in the Gloucestershire Journal of 9 October 1915) show him as having been wounded with the 7th Glosters.
The battalion was withdrawn to Egypt in January 1916 and at some point Private Saysum transferred to the Military Field Police, where he was given the number 6542.
In late 1916 he married Florence Saunders (who came from Charlton, Pershore) at Tamworth.
They had a son, George W, born in September 1917, who sadly died in March 1918. A further son, George Geoffrey, was born on 6 July 1919.
On an unknown date George Saysum returned to the Gloucestershire Regiment to the 1st Battalion and assumed his original service number of 16113.
The battalion was part of 3rd Brigade, 1st Division and took part in one of the final battles of the war, the Battle of the Sambre which saw it capture Catillon on 4 November 1918 and cross the River Sambre. Private Saysum, now acting corporal, was wounded in this action.
The wound was possibly a head wound, caused by a shell splinter.
According to the report of his funeral contained in the Gloucestershire Journal of 6 December 1919, he was returned to England on Armistice Day and underwent prolonged treatment, which appeared to be progressing satisfactorily, until, almost a year later he developed an abscess on the brain and he died, following an operation, on 26 November 1919 at New End Military Hospital, Hampstead, northLondon. He was aged 22.
His funeral was held at Lydney on 2 December 1919 where a detachment of the Glosters were present from their HQ in Bristol and he received military honours.
His grave is now marked by a standard CWGC headstone and he is commemorated on the Lydney War memorial.
Researched by Graham Adams 27 December 2017
Photographs are taken from a ‘family tree’ submission on Ancestry UK – his sister Cissie
accompanies him in the one below showing the wound dressing. Acknowledgement is also given to the Forest of Dean Local History Website for certain information.
