Dunham, Private George Albert

1st April 1918 – Train load of British troops going up to the front line with support. Mont-St. Éloi.: © IWM. Original Source: http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205077387

Service highlights

  • Rank: Private
  • Service Number: 727074
  • Unit: Canadian Infantry (Central Ontario Regiment), 58th Battalion
  • Born: November 27, 1885
  • Enlisted: November 20 1915
  • Died: April 9, 1917 (age 31)
  • Burial: Ecoivres Military Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France, Grave V.C. 13
  • Remembered locally: Listed on the St. Marys war memorial roll

A Life and Service Remembered

George Albert Dunham’s early life was shaped by disruption and second chances. As a child, he was admitted to a City of London workhouse in April 1888 as a “lost child.” He later came under the care of W. C. Fegan’s homes and was sent to Canada in 1899, arriving through the Fegan Distributing Home in Toronto. By 1901 he was living and working in rural Ontario, placed as a domestic in the household of John Morden in Nissouri, Middlesex County. Ten years later he was still working in service, now in the household of Clara and George Arne, also in Nissouri.

When war came, George enlisted on 20 November 1915. Research notes tied to his record indicate he adjusted his birth year on enlistment, giving 1885 rather than 1882, likely to appear younger. He joined the newly forming 110th Battalion, sailed for England on 31 October 1916, trained with the 8th Reserve Battalion, and was transferred to the 58th Battalion on 6 March 1917.

Only weeks later, the 58th was drawn into the Battle of Vimy Ridge. On 9 April 1917 the Canadian Corps attacked in the early morning behind a carefully planned artillery barrage. George was wounded in the fighting and taken to No. 4 Canadian Field Ambulance. He died of his wounds during the night of 9 April, with records also describing his death as occurring the next morning, 10 April 1917.

George’s story is a hard one to read without feeling the distance he travelled in a lifetime. Sent across the Atlantic as a child with little control over his fate, he crossed it again as a soldier, and died far from home in the opening hours of one of Canada’s defining battles of the First World War. George rests at Ecoivres Military Cemetery near Mont St Eloi, a height that overlooks the battlefields of Vimy and Souchez. Far from home, his name is still close to home, remembered on the St. Marys memorial roll.

Major battles and operations

  • Battle of Vimy Ridge, France: April 9 to 12, 1917

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