Friends of Hastings Cemetery

George Edward Russell served as G.E Longley at the No. 6 Reserve Veterinary Hospital, Army Veterinary Corps..

To have joined the AVC, he almost certainly was a farrier or had experience in caring for horses.

He was born about 1878 in Bexhill to George Charles and Emily Russell. He died of influenza on the 13th of November 1918, aged 41.

His mother was widowed by 1901 and living in Salisbury Road,with several of her children and her brother, Thomas Longley.  [In FamilySearch the 1901 census has been split, making it appear the Russell siblings listed are Thomas’s children, despite the surname Russell, but if you conflate the two, it all makes sense.]

Why he used his mother’s maiden name as an alias is not clear.  His next of kin (his brother, J C Russell) lived at 11 Cliftonville Road,  Bulverhythe in West St Leonards.  

The SE in his service number stands for Special Enlistment', in effect he had a skill the Army needed and would have been employed in that occupation.

SE enlistments usually did a minimum of training, basically a few  weeks to learn the ‘army way'. They were not expected to serve in the front line an did not do infantry training. Like the medical hospitals the veterinary hospitals were associated with the base depots.

The No. 6 Reserve. Veterinary Hospital, Army Veterinary Corps was in Bufford by the start of the war and moved to Rouen (France) by the 14th of August. The war diary shows they were in Nantes early September 1914 , but Rouen was their main place of work.

[Thanks to Sabine Declercq, for additional information. https://www.facebook.com/people/greatwarpilgrimage/100057064795732/ ]