John George Gidley 1893 - 1917

John George Gidley was a Lance Corporal in the 2nd (City of London) Battalion of the London Regiment (the Royal Fusiliers). He was killed on August 16, 1917.
John George Gidley was the only son of George John Gidley, a tailor in Paddington, London. He had one sister, Doris, who never married. There are no close surviving relatives on the Gidley side at all, as his father's, George John Gidley's, three sisters either did not survive to adulthood or had no children who survived to adulthood. John George's grandfather, John Cumber Gidley, was born in Diptford, Devon in 1806, and had moved to Uxbridge in Middlesex by 1841 where he established a tailoring business. The family is therefore part of the Dean Prior branch. John George Gidley continued the family tailoring tradition. In 1911 he was a tailor's assistant, living at home in Paddington, where his father had presumably found more scope for business than in more rural Uxbridge.
John George Gidley volunteered early in the war. His Medal Rolls index card records that he first served in Egypt, arriving on August 30, 1915. According to the history of John George's regiment on the Long, Long Trail website, he may well have landed at Gallipoli
in September 1915, then been shipped to France in April 1916. At first his death was only presumed, according to the Medal Rolls, in August 1917. In Flanders, the Third Battle of Ypres was launched on 31st July 1917, so he may well have been involved. During the first night of the attack rain began to fall. The ground quickly turned into a quagmire. Churned up by the German artillery bombardment, the ground the British were now having to advance across was badly damaged and filling up with rainwater which could not drain away through the heavy clay soil. Added to this, several small streams flowed through the area and their natural drainage channels had been destroyed. With persistent rain over the next few weeks the whole operation became literally bogged down in thick, sticky Flanders mud. Conditions were so bad that men and horses simply disappeared into the water-filled craters. This was the battle later known known as Passchendaele.
John George was awarded the 15 Star, the British and the Victory medals. He was buried in New Irish Farm Cemetery, Ypres. He must have been one of the first to be buried there, as New Irish Farm Cemetery was first used from August to November 1917. It was named after a nearby farm, known to the troops as 'Irish Farm'.