Private George Thomas Saunders Underhill
1st/8th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own)
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 4th of July 1881
Place of Birth: Coombe Road, West Teignmouth, Devon
Date of Death: 18th of September 1916 aged 35
Buried: Combles Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme. Remembered on St James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
Awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
George was born in Teignmouth in 1881; he was the eldest son of George Thomas Underhill who was born at Ringmore (Stokeinteignhead), a gardener, and his wife Charlotte also born in Stokeinteignhead.
In 1901 the family were living at 28 Coombe Road, Teignmouth. George (junior) married Susan McEvoy in 1910 and they were living at Hanwell, Middlesex, where he was a nurseryman at a market garden; their son Stanley George was born in 1910. They also had a daughter, Teresa Doris, born in 1913.
On the 22nd of May 1915, he joined the army, his Territorial Force Attestation papers show he enlisted with 4th/8th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, service number 4688, at Ealing.
His papers record he was 36 and 9 months old and had previously served in 1st Devon (Volunteers). His medal roll card records his entitlement to the 1914-15 Star, War and Victory medals and that the first theatre of war he served in was Egypt from the 1 September 1915.
Middlesex Regiment cap badge
George was posted to the 2nd/8th and then the 1st/8th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment in France, where he was involved in the fighting at Wedge Wood, north of Combles.
He was later presumed to have died on 18 September 1916. Reburied at Combles Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme. Remembered on St James’ Church Memorial Window, Teignmouth.
His wife, Susan, living at 6a Market Parade, Hanwell, received a pension of 22 shillings and 11 pence a week for her and her two children from the 2 May 1917.
