Molineux, George King


Captain / Northumberland Fusiliers

1887 - 1915
Biography:

George King Molineux was born 15 April 1887, the elder son of Major Harold Parminter Molineux, (Commoners, 1864), and Rosa Molineux, nee King.

He came to Winchester College from St Vincent's School in September 1901 and w as in E House, Morshead's. He was a Commoner Prefect, played in Soccer XI and Lords XI in 1906, and in Commoner XV and VI in 1904 and 1905. He later played cricket for the Gentlemen of England.

George left Winchester in the summer of 1906 for to Magdalen College, Oxford, and in 1909 passed from the Special Reserve into the Regular Army, joining 2nd Battalion Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. In 1914 he was gazetted A.D.C. to the Viceroy of India and resigned this appointment in November 1914 to join his regiment in France. His battalion was on the northern flank of the Ypres Salient when a fresh phase of the Second Battle of Ypres began on 22 April 1915.

On 8 May there was fierce fighting on the Frezenberg Ridge and at one point the entire British line was in danger of collapse. By 1300 the line had begun to crumble with the Germans getting behind the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers. By late that evening the Commanding Officer decided that their position was untenable and ordered them to 'hold on' until dusk. At 1900 the shelling abruptly stopped and the Battalion was almost over-run by the enemy. The CO and the Adjutant were captured but the 2nd Northumberlands held their ground until darkness fell. Molineux was last seen, wounded and unconscious in the trench which his unit was holding, but had to be left behind when the men retreated.

Molineux's place of burial is unknown but he is commemorated on Panels 8 and 12 of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.


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