Buried behind the trenches with a cross. It took 111 years to find him again.
Corporal George Manning of Ipswich was killed in March 1915, buried behind the trenches with a cross, and lost for 111 years. Two brass badges, a family tree and a DNA match have given him back his name, a military funeral next spring, and a search for the relatives who might still hold a photograph of him.
In April 1915, the Suffolk Chronicle and Mercury printed a letter that had reached Ada Manning in Handford Square, Ipswich. 1
A private named A. Mills wrote that her son, Corporal George Manning of the 2nd Suffolks, had been killed on the afternoon of 9 March. The men, he wrote, had looked upon him as a father to them. He had been buried behind the trenches with a few of his fallen heroes, and a cross was put up. 1
Manning was 34. 2
That notice is the last record of where he lay. For 111 years George Manning had no known grave. 2
A quiet month
In March 1915 the 2nd Battalion was in the Vierstraat area, near Ypres. 1
March was a quiet month there. No major attacks were planned or repelled; the battalion simply stayed in the lines. 1
Staying in the lines cost it 140 casualties, under sniper fire and shelling, worn down day by day. 1
A carter from Woodhouse Street
George Thomas Manning was born on 3 July 1881 at 17 Ernest Street, in Ipswich, one of nine children. His father was a quay porter. 1
By 1901 he was 20, a farm carter on Alderney in the Channel Islands. 1
On 24 September 1905 he married Florence Elizabeth Bayles at St Michael's Church. Both were 24. He was a carter, and she was a baker's daughter from Bond Street. 1
They lived at 3 Woodhouse Street and had two daughters, Florence Nellie and Ethel Katie. 1
Ethel died in July 1912, aged three, and was buried in Ipswich Old Cemetery. The family already had one grave. 1
When the letter arrived three years later, Florence was left widowed with a daughter of nine. 1
One of the other eight children was killed too. His brother William Valentine Manning, a sergeant in the Royal Field Artillery, died of wounds in April 1917, aged 26, and is buried in Pas de Calais. 3
Panel 21
The British and Commonwealth dead of the Ypres salient with no known grave are named on the Menin Gate at Ypres: 55,000 of them, the BBC reports. 2
George Manning is on Panel 21. 1
Andrew Beal, of Ipswich War Memorial, has spent years reading what that did to families. 2
"It probably was quite upsetting after the war to realise there was no grave and they couldn't find it," he said. 2
"Over the years, we've come across letters and things from families, and they're absolutely heartbroken that there is no grave to visit. There's just a plaque on the wall - it's not the same really." 2
Two brass badges
His remains came up in 2019, during ditch clearance at Kemmel, near Ypres. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission recovered them and took them to a mortuary in France. 2
In 2024 the Ministry of Defence received a report on what had been found with the body: two brass badges with the word Suffolk on them. 2
That narrowed it sharply. Only the 2nd Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment had been in that ground, and 26 of its men killed there were still missing. 2
Alexia Clark is one of the MOD's war detectives, a small team at Imjin Barracks in Gloucester who identify remains, trace families and arrange the funerals. 4
Her method was genealogy. Clark built a family tree for each of the 26 men, then looked for living relatives who might give a DNA sample. 2
She worked through six other men before one came back a match. 2
"It's a really thrilling feeling when you get that report that comes through from the DNA contractors and it is, 'Yes, you've got it this time'," she said. 2
The match was a two-times great-nephew. Two more relatives have since been found, one of them in Australia. 2
"It's always a nice feeling to be able to give a man back his name," Clark said. 2
Next spring
Manning will be buried with full military honours next spring in Belgium, in a cemetery with others of the Suffolk Regiment. 2
The MOD holds these services near where the remains are found. They are open to the public and free to attend. 5
The MOD can sometimes fund relatives' travel to the service. 5
Anyone who thinks they may be related to George or William Manning can contact the MOD War Detectives or Ipswich War Memorial. 12
Clark has one more request. She would like a photograph of George Manning to put in the Order of Service. 1
It is the part of this I keep thinking about. The research is done, the funeral is arranged, and a face is the one thing only a family can supply. 1
Everything else is on the record: a birth in Ernest Street, a marriage at St Michael's, a death in a quiet month, a panel number in Ypres. 1
If a photograph of him survives in a box somewhere in Ipswich, it has a use now. 1
References
- 1GEORGE THOMAS MANNING
ipswichwarmemorial.co.uk
- 2
- 3WILLIAM VALENTINE MANNING
ipswichwarmemorial.co.uk
- 4
- 5
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