HENRY CECIL HALL
Being a son of a serving soldier prior to WW1, there was a good chance that the family would be overseas at the time of the censuses and leave only intermittent records at home. This happened to Henry Cecil Hall whose father Albert was in the army and appears to have been abroad in 1901.
The first we see of Henry Cecil comes from the record of his time spent at the Secondary School (later Southern Grammar School) on Victoria Road North, Southsea. He attended the school from 1910 to 1911 after which '...he left the school after taking the First Year's Course, and went into employment at an early age.'
For the 1911 census, his father had retired from the army to become an insurance agent. This meant that the family appeared in the census as living at 73 Wymering Road. It consisted of Albert (b. 1864), Emma Blanche (b. 1866) with children Albert, Henry Cecil, Noah and Marion.
Henry Cecil '...joined the 2/6th Hampshire Regiment and became Lance Corporal attached to the 2/6th Royal Warwicks. In the Battle of the Somme, 1916, he was promoted to Corporal on the Field and finally became 2nd Lieut. in the 1st Hampshire Regiment. He was killed in action on October 4th, 1917, "somewhere in France," [actually, in Belgium during the third Battle of Ypres] and his body was not recovered as it was in a very exposed position. The Colonel of the 1st Hampshire Regiment wrote :-" On the day in question, he did his duty nobly, gallantly leading his platoon forward in the attack, and had taken them over 1000 yards before he was killed by a shell. He always did his work in a most thorough and painstaking manner, and I had great confidence in him."'
FURTHER INFORMATION
The photograph reproduced is from a memorial booklet published by Southern Grammar School from which extracts also appear above.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) website lists Henry Cecil Hall, Second Lieutenant, 1st Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, date of death, 04/10/1917, aged 19. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial (Panel 88 to 90 and 162). Son of Emma Blanche Hall, of 42, Victoria Rd. South, Southsea, Hants.
Henry Hall is remembered on the Southern Grammar School WW1 memorial Plaque as well as on the Cenotaph. He is not listed in the 'National Roll of the Great War'.
Henry's brother Arthur Charles Hall was also killed in World War 1.
Tim Backhouse
September 2013