Second Lieutenant Godfrey Burnside Hudson
3rd Battalion attached 1st Battalion, Gloucester Regiment
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 16th April 1898
Place of Birth: Tiverton, Devon
Date of Death: 18 April 1918 aged 19
Buried: Gorre British & Indian Cemetery, France
Second Lieutenant Godfrey Burnside Hudson age 19.
Born at Huntsham near Tiverton on 16 April 1898 the son of Reverend Arthur Reginald and May Hudson of Huntsham Rectory. He was baptised by his father at Huntsham on 8th May. He was still living here in the 1901 census with his parents and siblings. In 1911 he was shown as a boarder at school in Banbury, Oxfordshire. His father now a widower, later lived at 6 Courtney Place, Teignmouth, Devon.
Godfrey attended St. Edward's School, Oxford where he was a member of the Officers' Training Corps.
Gloucestershire Regiment
Cap Badge
In April 1916 he entered Sandhurst Military College and was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant with the Gloucester Regiment with effect from 27 October 1916. He arrived in France and went to the Front in 1917; Godfrey was serving with 3rd Battalion attached 1st Battalion, Gloucester Regiment, when he was killed in action at Givenchy on 18 April 1918.
Buried in Gorre British & Indian Cemetery, France.
Grave Inscription reads: "In Peace".
He enlisted into the Gloucestershire Regiment in Febraury 1916, despite noting on his attestation papers that he suffered from extremely poor eyesight.
At 4.15am on the morning of the 18th, the Germans unleashed hell on the British. The shell fire was incessant, with thousands of high explosive, gas and incendiary shells dropping all over the front line. The keep at Festubert East where Hudson was posted was atomised, but miraculously Hudson survived the bombardment, one of only 8 from a company strength detachment of men.
As the Germans made repeatedly suicidal attacks throughout the day, including using field guns at near point blank range, a massive hole suddenly appeared in the British line. The Germans poured through and massacred the beleaguered defenders, including Godfrey Hudson.
From Bloxham School War Dead by Matt Dixon
(Godfrey attended Bloxham School 1910-11)
