Bishophill local history group plan touching commemoration for Private George Ellison, the last British soldier killed in the First World War

AT 9.30am on November 18, 1918, Private George Ellison of the Royal Irish Lancers must have been thinking that the long hell of the Great War was almost over.

Private Ellison, 40, who had been born in Skeldergate in 1878, had seen action in almost every major battle of the war.

He had been a part of the British Expeditionary Force which had embarked for France just a few days after war was declared on August 5, 1914.

He had survived the Battle of Mons; fought at Ypres; and witnessed the first tanks going into battle at the Somme in 1916.

Somehow, he had lived through it all - one of the very few original members of the BEF who was still fighting fit as the war drew to a close.

By that November morning in 1918, the end was very near. An Armistice had actually been signed at 5am that morning. But to allow for the news of the ceasefire to reach the trenches, implementation was delayed until 11am.

Private Ellison's regiment was at Mons, in Belgium - ironically, the site of the first major battle of the war four years earlier. That morning, he was sent out on horseback to check out reports of enemy movements in woods on the outskirts of Mons. At 9.30am, an hour and a half before the Armistice came into force, he was shot and killed by an enemy sniper.

Grainy: the only existing photo of Private George Ellison

According to the Bishophill Local History Group, which has been researching his life, he was one of about 11,000 men from all sides who were killed, wounded or went missing on that last day of the war. But Private Ellison is unique: he was the last British soldier to be killed before peace was declared.

"It is just so sad that he didn't come back!" says Beryl Long, a member of the history group. "He must have been thinking 'it will all be over at 11am'."

The local history group will be holding a low-key vigil to mark Private Ellison's death on November 11 this year. They'll be having a cup of coffee together at Teajuana's, the café at No 4 Skeldergate next to where Private Ellison was born in 1878.

As 9.30, the hour of his death, arrives, they'll be standing outside No 8 (today a recruitment agency). Ideally, they would like to have a bugler to play a simple 'last post' in Private Ellison's honour at 9.30am - though so far, they haven't been able to find one (see panel). "We just feel that would be the most appropriate way to commemorate his life," says Colin Hinchcliffe, the local history group's chairman.

So who was this soldier who fought for the entire duration of the war, only to be shot dead by a sniper right at the very end?

We have only a very grainy photograph, from which it is hard to make out much at all.

But members of the Bishophill history group have managed to find out quite a lot about his life.

Members of the Bishophill Local History Group outside No 8 Skeldergate, where Private Ellison was born

George Ellison was born at 8 Skeldergate (the house itself has long been demolished) on August 10, 1878. He was baptised at St John's, Ousebridge (today a bar) on September 5. The family seem still to have been living in Skeldergate when, a couple of years later, George's little sister Jane was born.

When he was three years old, the family moved to 4 Union Court in the parish of St Mary Bishophill Junior. By the time he was 13 they had moved again, to Newington in East Yorkshire, and later moved to Kippax Terrace in Leeds.

Early in his life, George joined the British Army as a regular soldier - he may even have served in the Boer War, according to the history group's research.

But by 1912 he had left the army and was working in Nottinghamshire as a coalminer. That was the year he married his wife, Hannah. A year later, their son James was born.

By 1914, James and his family were back in Yorkshire, living in Edmund Street, Leeds. And just before war broke out, he was recalled to the British Army, joining the 5th Royal Irish Lancers. He became part of the British Expeditionary Force ((BEF) which, on August 9, just four days after war had been declared, began embarking for France.

The BEF was a ludicrously small force - just 80,000 men, compared to the one million or so men the French and Germans had mobilised. But it was made up of professional soldiers and reservists who had been professional soldiers - and was probably the best trained and most experienced of the European armies on the outbreak of war.

British troops in France returning to their trenches in the First World War

Kaiser Wilhelm II was famously dismissive of the BEF, issuing an order to his troops on August 19 to 'exterminate... the treacherous English and walk over (this) contemptible little army'. In later years, survivors of that 'little army' - men like Private Ellison - ironically dubbed themselves the 'Old Contemptibles'.

They saw heavy fighting in the Battle of Mons, eventually being forced into a tactical retreat by the overwhelming strength of the German army and the retreat of the French fifth army on the British right flank. The war then settled down into the dreadful pattern that was to last for so long - trench warfare.

The short history of Private Ellison put together by the Bishophill history group outlines what happened to him during the course of the war.

"Whilst 1914 took a very heavy toll on Ellison’s comrades he soldiered on through some of the most important episodes of the war, starting and ending at Mons," it says.

"He went into the first trenches as the war became deadlocked; fought at Ypres in 1915 where the Germans used poison gas for the first time; was on the Somme in 1916 and witnessed the first tanks used on a battlefield going up to the front."

He survived it all: right up until that fateful morning of November 11, 1918, when he was scouting for enemy movement in woods on the outskirts of Mons and was shot by an enemy sniper.

Back at home in Leeds his wife Hannah received a telegram advising her of her husband's death while the rest of the country was celebrating victory. Private Ellison's son, James, was just five days short of his fifth birthday.

Private Ellison's grave in St Symphorien, Belgium

Private Ellison was buried in the military cemetery at St Symphorien, close to Mons, alongside 228 other Commonwealth soldiers and 284 German soldiers. Both he and the cemetery in which he was buried featured in Michael Palin’s recent TV documentary 'The last day of the First World War'. In the programme, the presenter accompanied Private Ellison's granddaughters Catherine and Marie to St Symphorien, where he showed them the grainy photo of their grandfather taken from a newspaper. "It was a touching moment as they had never seen a photo of their grandfather previously," says Mr Hinchcliffe.

There is an even more touching coda to this most poignant of stories, however.

Almost exactly opposite Private Ellison's resting place in St Symphorien is the grave of 17-year-old Private John Parr - the very first British soldier to have been killed in the war.

As part of a special project in the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, writer Philip Parker wrote a short 100 word piece about Private Parr and Private Ellison. It is written in Private Parr's voice: Parker imagines the first British soldier to be killed in the war lying in his grave and waiting for the last British soldier to be killed to come and join him.

That short piece was entitled 'Goodnight Kiss'. We have already run the piece once in this newspaper: but it seems surely worth running it again. The 'old sweats' in the first line refers to the experienced regular army soldiers and reservists who made up the BEF at the start of the war...

Goodnight Kiss by Philip Parker

FIVE strides apart, five summers past, I saluted you and the old sweats riding to War.

I fell first. And waited: while you mined the frozen mud. Ducked into crump holes. Pinched lice from your seams. Felt the pear drops’ sting at Wipers. You drink Hannah’s words from home; Jimmy’s walking now. Then you’re following the tank tracks from Cambrai. The chase draws you to Mons, where your War began. In the woods on the eleventh day, a goodnight kiss. Ninety minutes to Armistice. My wait ends. First and last in a bunker for pals, we lie five strides apart.

A Last Post for Private Ellison

Members of the Bishophill Local History Group will be meeting for a coffee at No 4 Skeldergate (Teajuana's café) on the morning of November 11. At 9.30am, the hour of Private Ellison's death, they will then quietly remember him outside No 8 Skeldergate where he was born.

But they'd like to be able to do more than that. They would love someone to be able to play The Last Post on a bugle for the last British soldier to be killed in the war. "We just feel that would be the most appropriate way to commemorate his life," says Colin Hinchcliffe, the group's chairman

So far, they have been unable to find anyone who could do so, however. They would love to hear from anyone who could help. So if you're a bugler, or you know someone who is who might be willing to play the Last Post for Private Ellison, email Colin Hinchcliffe on colin@empirebooks.org.uk or call Stephen Lewis at the Press on 01904 567263.