Sergeant George Jennings; 12809 R.W.F.; 671640 Labour Corps
His Flintshire Record of Service has this written on the back: “I joined the army Sept. 1st 1914 and went to France on 21st July 1915 and was there untill Sept. 30th 1917 got wounded on Sept. 23rd 1917 and came back to England at the end of Sept. 1917 and was sent to Birmingham Hospital and was there until Feb. 1918 after that was sent to Ireland from Feb until October and was then transferred to the labour corps, I was made L/Cpl in England 1915 and then got next two stripes in France.”
His possible illegitimate birth is 16th June 1888 (birth date taken from 1939 census). The early life of George has been difficult to determine. I have been in touch with a granddaughter Linda, who believed his mother was called Mary Jane Jennings. There is a Mary J Jennings born 1871 in Whitchurch. Then sadly, in the 1881 census there is a Mary J Jennings aged 8, in the Whitchurch Workhouse, with a James Jennings, widower aged 73. In 1891 she is possibly a laundrymaid in a workhouse in Birkenhead (birthplace recorded as Whitchurch, Salop). I have been unable to find George in neither 1891 nor 1901. If these dates are correct, Mary J Jennings would be only 17 when she gave birth to George.
1911: aged 22, working as a cowman for the Kynaston family in Halghton (his surname was transcribed as Fennings). Birth place recorded as Ash.
In the 1939 census, he is a painter & decorator in Whitchurch with inferred wife Bertha and a daughter Doris. This is likely to be their marriage, because their banns were recorded in Hanmer Parish records. Interesting to note that the father’s name of James Jennings has been crossed out…..
His granddaughter confirmed he died 1956, Wellington district.
Hanmer WW1 