Geary returned to England to parade with the Canadian contingent at the VC Centenary Review on 26 June 1956, and attended the reception at the Mansion House, London, the following day. He represented Canada on the VC and GC Association Committee and attended the bi-annual reunions in London, being present at the association’s second dinner on 7 July 1962; the following day he joined fellow members at the third dinner of the VC and GC Association at the Café Royal. His last attendance was on 15 July 1964 when he came from Canada for the Commemorative Service at St Martin-in-the-Fields and the fourth Association dinner at the Café Royal.
During his years in Canada he led an active life and was involved in a wide range of organizations, many with military links. By the end of his life he could boast of being an ex-President of the Imperial Officers’ Association of Canada; a Governor in the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires; a Director of Kingsley Hall (Toronto) for Men; an Honorary Member of the University Club of Toronto, the Empire Club, the Aitken Club, the Canadian Officers’ Club and Military Institute, the Civilian Club, the Royal Canadian Military Institute, and the Royal Society of St George. He was also a Life Member of the Canadian Legion and ex-President of their Woodbridge Branch, and a member of St George’s Society and, of course, of the VC and GC Association. His VC is held by the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. He died on 26 May 1976 in Canada, aged 84 years 11 months.
G.H. WOOLLEY
Hill 60, Belgium, 20/21 April
At 21.30 hours on 20 April A and C Coys of the 9th Bn, The London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles) of 13th Bde, 5th Div., advanced from their trenches to take up positions near the top of Hill 60. They were commanded by Maj. Lees and Capt. Westby respectively. The German bombardment was so intensive at this time that it took the QVR companies two hours to traverse the 200 yards to their allocated position, digging themselves in close to the right hand crater. Towards midnight Sgt E.H. Pulleyn QVR was ordered to fill a gap in the British trench line on the very crest of the hill with a force of sixteen men; eleven made it to the position with Sgt Pulleyn but five fell wounded almost immediately; the remainder were soon forced to rejoin their comrades in their original position. By this time both Maj. Lees and Capt. Westby had been killed, and two-thirds of the 150 riflemen who had followed them had fallen. Despite constant enemy attacks throughout the night, the QVR men held on. As day began to break just thirty men were left.
At this critical moment an officer was seen making his way towards them, sometimes running, sometimes going to ground, sometimes crawling forward through the deluge of shells and bullets. Incredibly Lt Woolley slid unharmed over the parapet and joined the riflemen, immediately taking command. He saw a supply of ‘jam-pot bombs’ and borrowing a box of matches from 2/Lt Summerhayes to light the fuses, he proceeded to lob them over the brow of the crater, with some of the men acting as observers to direct his throws. 2/Lt Summerhayes was killed immediately after handing over his match-box (which, incidentally, is now in the Regimental Museum), leaving Lt Woolley, the only surviving officer on this part of the hill, in charge of the defence of two craters. At intervals various runners brought up boxes of Hales grenades which Woolley employed to keep the enemy back, his grenade-throwing being supplemented by rapid fire from the men around him. Two NCOs, Pulleyn and Peabody, supported Woolley’s defence of the craters, despite the growing number of casualties. They each earned themselves a DCM for their bravery. An officer arrived from QVR HQ with a verbal order, and later a written order, for Woolley to bring back all the men of his regiment. He refused to comply until he was properly relieved as there were so few surviving men of other regiments left on the Hill. Woolley recounts in his autobiography, Sometimes a Soldier, that he was near to becoming a casualty himself when a small German egg-type hand-grenade struck him on the head; fortunately the blast went upwards and outwards, stunning him momentarily and tearing two large rents in his cap, but otherwise leaving him unscathed. The German field-guns continued to sweep away the earth rim of the craters and the men behind it, though as night fell the shelling quietened a little. Frantic requests for British artillery to reply to the German bombardment received little success owing to the fact the British batteries had suffered casualties comparable to those of the infantry.
At dawn on the 21st an officer of the Devons, who were on Woolley’s left, reached him with orders to go to Trench 38 (see map on page 64) by the railway cutting to bring up a bombing section of the Northumberland Fusiliers. Woolley found there sixty ‘trained bombers, with a plentiful supply of bombs’, whom he led up to man the craters in support of the Devons. He then brought back the fourteen survivors of the original 150 men of A Coy who had gone into action just two days earlier. The Battalion War Diary is very prosaic concerning these eventful days, merely listing the number of dead, wounded and missing, though it is clear that the sacrifices of the QVR did not go unrecognized at the time, for the War Diary concludes its three line entry for 19-22 April with the following: ‘Bn. relieved and addressed by Gen. Sir H. Smith-Dorrien in Field S. off VLAMERTINGHE road.’ Lt Woolley was awarded the VC for his ‘conspicuous bravery’, becoming the first Territorial officer to receive the coveted Cross.
Geoffrey Harold Woolley was born at St Peter’s Vicarage, Bethnal Green, London, on 14 May 1892, one of ten children of the Revd George Herbert Woolley and his wife Sarah (née Cathcart). He was educated at Parmiter’s School, near Victoria Park, London, St John’s School, Leatherhead, and at Queen’s College, Oxford. Woolley joined the Army on 4 August 1914 as a second lieutenant in the 5th Bn, The Essex Regiment, then in training near Drayton, Norfolk. After the division of the Essex Territorial Brigade, Woolley transferred to the 9th Bn The London Regiment (Queen Victoria’s Rifles), going overseas with them on 4 November 1914, and entering the trenches for the first time at the end of that month between Neuve Eglise and Wulverghem. During this period a newspaper reported (incorrectly) that he was awarded the VC for ‘throwing a live bomb out of a trench and so saving men’s lives’. He did throw out over the trench parapet a ‘dud’ mortar-bomb which had attracted the curiosity of some men after it had landed in the trench, but the award would be for his deeds at Hill 60 on 20/21 April 1915. After returning to ‘rest’ after the defence of Hill 60, Woolley found himself back in the area preparing to attack the Germans. On 23 April Woolley was badly affected by a fresh release of gas while preparing to move his company forward, but remained with his men, going into the line two days later. He was made a captain on 26 April. The 13th Bde was withdrawn a week later and while at rest Woolley’s poor condition caused him to be sent to an officers’ rest station where he learned of the award of the VC. A fortnight later he rejoined his regiment, only to be harangued by the senior MO who had ordered him to be sent to England. Woolley was sent to No. 2 Red Cross Hospital at Rouen and was eventually moved to the officers’ hospital at Osborne on the Isle of Wight. Shortly afterwards he returned to his retired father’s home, an Elizabethan farmhouse, Old Riffhams, Danbury, Essex, to rest his ‘shattered nerves’. After weeks spent recuperating he was invited to help with the training of Cambridge University OTC and run courses for Territorial and ‘New Army’ officers.
In September 1915 Woolley was passed fit for active service and rejoined the QVR, now in the line at Bray, on the Somme. Being the junior company commander he was detailed in February 1916 to attend the first course of instruction organized by the Fourth Army at Flixecourt. He impressed them so much that he was told to remain as instructor at the new Third Army Infantry School at Auxi-le-Château, where he remained for five months; there he met the Revd Studdert-Kennedy, better known as ‘Woodbine Willie’, who joined the school as Chaplain. Woolley’s organizational skills were obvious and he was appointed GSO 3 at Third Army HQ in August 1916. He was reallocated to the Infantry School in December and later he was moved to act as special staff officer to General Robertson, 17th Div., immediately after the German attack on 21 March 1918; he rejoined Third Army HQ as GSO 3 on 21 Apri
l 1918.
Woolley was granted leave in June, returning home to marry Janet Culme-Seymour, the widow of a good friend, George, the son of Admiral Sir Michael Culme-Seymour, who was present at the church at Danbury to see the couple married, the service being taken by Woolley’s father.
He returned to Third Army HQ where he served until the Armistice, doing liaison work with the troops of 4th Corps, and earning himself a Mention in Despatches on 23 December 1918 and a Military Cross which was gazetted on 3 June 1919. Woolley was demobilized in March 1919, returning to Oxford University to take an MA. His wife already had a son and a daughter from her first marriage but was to bear her new husband a son in 1919 and a daughter in 1921. After gaining his Master’s degree he was ordained in December 1920 in Coventry Cathedral and became an assistant master at Rugby School in 1920. Earlier that year he attended the garden party at Buckingham Palace on 26 June, and the ceremony at the Cenotaph on 11 November. He also dedicated the QVR memorial on Hill 60. From 1923 to 1926 Woolley was vicar of Monk Sherborne, near Basingstoke, prior to becoming assistant master and chaplain at Harrow School in 1927, a position he held for twelve years. He was present at the VC dinner at the House of Lords on 9 November 1929.
During the Second World War he was senior chaplain to the troops in Algiers. His son, Rollo, born in 1919, was a Spitfire pilot and was killed in a dog-fight over Tunis in early December 1942. Woolley’s wife had been in poor health for some time and died of pneumonia in London in February 1943. In May he fell ill himself with pleurisy and pneumonia, contracting dysentery while in hospital. He slowly recovered and was awarded the OBE in the same year ‘in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in North Africa’ where he was known as the ‘Woodbine Willie of Algiers’. He was vicar of Harrow from 1944 until 1952. He was married for the second time, on 12 June 1945, to Elisabeth (Betty) Nichols, daughter of Alfred Nichols of Worthing. She later bore him a son, Nicholas. In April 1952 he received a surprise visit from Queen Mary, whom he conducted on a brief tour of his church, St Mary’s, Harrow. On 26 June 1956 he attended the Guildhall VC reception.
Woolley retained his military connections, being involved in various groups and attending important functions. He was President of the Harrow Branch of the British Legion, and of the Old Contemptibles’ Association. As Vice-Chairman of the VC and GC Association, and later serving on its committee, he was present at the following reunions and dinners: The first dinner of the VC Association held on 24 July 1958; the second dinner on 7 July 1960; the garden party and banquet on 17 July 1962, and the third VC Association dinner held the following day; the review of the Old Contemptibles at Buckingham Palace on 26 June 1964. In 1964 he also attended the service at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 15 July, met the prime minister at No. 10 Downing Street later that day, and enjoyed the fourth Association dinner the next day.
Woolley had displayed great energy and concern for the welfare of others throughout his life, which had been recognised by the awarding of an OBE. He wrote several books, including an autobiography called Sometimes a Soldier, which was published in 1963. He died peacefully on 10 December 1968 at Hunter’s Barn, West Chiltington, near Pulborough, Sussex. The funeral was held at noon at St Mary’s Church, West Chiltington, on Saturday 14 December, and a Memorial Service was given at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 23 January 1969.
On 6 June 2007 a new memorial plaque was dedicated in St George’s Church, Ypres, Belgium. After prayers and readings, the dedication was made to Second Lieutenant G. H. Woolley VC and 103 former students of Parmiter’s School who gave their lives in the 1914/1918 War. The wording on the Memorial Plaque reads as follows:
PARMITER’S SCHOOL
In Honoured Memory of the 103 Old Parmiterian’s who gave their lives on Active Service during World War I
and
Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Harold Woolley VC OBE MC
E. DWYER
Hill 60, Belgium, 21 April
On 19 April Pte Edward Dwyer of B Coy 1st East Surreys was in a trench just to the north-north-east of Hill 60. Ahead and slightly to the right of the company’s position was a German strongpoint (marked Z on the map on page 40), which stood at the end of a sap extending from the enemy trenches. The Germans had made several determined attacks and had heavily shelled the whole area since the 17th.
The British intention was to move B Coy forward at dusk on 20 April to relieve A Coy in the advanced line, but the change-over never took place because a concerted effort by the enemy to retake the hill developed in the afternoon, the brunt of which was borne by A Coy in the forward positions. However, at 15.00 hours, about an hour before the main German thrust began, enemy infantrymen attempted to advance from their sap near the strongpoint Z to the shell-pitted area to B Coy’s right. The attacking troops were protected by their snipers in the strongpoint, and there was a real risk that the company’s trench could be overrun, thereby jeopardizing the rest of B Coy’s position and the trenches behind. Dwyer found himself alone in his section of trench, apart from the dead and wounded, with the Germans only 15 or 20 yards distant and throwing grenades at his trench; he swiftly gathered all the grenades he could find, ‘about three hundred in all’ according to his description in The War Budget of 8 July 1915, and because he was ‘in a dead funk at the idea of being taken prisoner’, he climbed on to the parapet, stood up and began throwing grenades at the Germans at a furious rate. His appearance in this exposed position brought a hail of bombs from the Germans whose aim seemed to be spoiled by their surprise at Dwyer’s reaction and his accurate and effective grenade throwing. He succeeded single-handedly in keeping the Germans at bay until reinforcements arrived, and remarkably he emerged from the fray unscathed, having saved his trench. He recounted that the ‘relieving party chipped me a lot and called me “The King of the Hand Grenades”’.
Earlier in the day he had shown great gallantry, leaving the safety of the trench during a heavy bombardment to bandage wounded comrades. On 27 April Dwyer was wounded in the head by ‘a flying piece of shrapnel’ and while he was recovering in hospital a month later, he learned of his award of the VC, which was gazetted on 22 May. He was decorated by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 28 June 1915, being accompanied by his old friend Father Browne whom he had known since the age of seven. He was promoted to lance-corporal and also received the Russian Cross of St George 4th Class.
Edward Dwyer was born in 1895 at 4 Cassidy Road, Fulham, London, the son of Mr James Dwyer, a private builder. He was baptized Edwin at St Thomas’ Roman Catholic Church and attended St Thomas’ Parish School. He lived with his parents at 30 Lintaine Grove, Fulham. He was apparently below average height (5ft 31⁄2in), describing himself as ‘a very little chap’, and worked as a greengrocer’s assistant before running away from home in the summer of 1912 aged sixteen. He had run away from home shortly after the banns were published for his father’s marriage to his mother, Mary Ann. It seems he could not bear the shame of discovering his illegitimacy. Lying about his age and calling himself Edward, he enlisted in the Army at Kingston-on-Thames, entering the 1st Bn East Surrey Regiment. He was with his battalion in Dublin, recovering in hospital from VD, when war broke out, and embarked for France on 13 August 1914 as part of the BEF. Dwyer took part in all the major engagements, including the Retreat from Mons. He won his VC on 21 April at Hill 60 and, after recovering from a wound received a week later, returned to England on leave. Being modest he kept his arrival home a secret for three days before being ‘discovered’ and then Fulham turned out in force to welcome their hero, who was fêted enthusiastically, being celebrated, at the age of 19, as the youngest VC of the war and being dubbed in the Press as ‘The Little Corporal’. He made several public appearances and attended recruiting drives, not only talking about his own war service but mentioning that of his family; his father James had enlisted in the ASC at the age of 50, and his elder brother James was in the RND in Salonika; his younger brother Andrew was in hospital having been wounded while on active se
rvice in the Dardanelles. He later died. Dwyer was engaged on a recruiting campaign for six months.
On 20 December 1915 L/Cpl Dwyer secretly married Maude Barrett-Freeman (whom he called Billie), a 21-year-old Red Cross nurse who had tended Dwyer in a French hospital when he was wounded. She was the daughter of John Barrett-Freeman, a farmer, and she lived at 5 Glenfield Road, Balham, at the time of the marriage. The service was a quiet affair held at Dwyer’s local church, which he had known all his life, the ceremony being conducted by his long-time friend Father D. Browne at St Thomas’s Roman Catholic Church, Rylston Road, Fulham. Dwyer told his mother the next day.
It would seem that he had some premonition that he might not return home again. Before leaving for the Front, Dwyer left his VC with Father Brown, telling him, ‘The general rule is that a VC gets knocked out the second time’. Having been promoted lance-corporal on 24 April 1915 in recognition of his feat, he then became acting corporal on 27 December. Apart from the recruiting drives he also made a recording entitled ‘With our boys at the Front’, which was available on record but is still extant on tape and CD entitled ‘The Great War’. He rejoined his battalion on active service in France early in 1916, and his wife resumed nursing, using her maiden name. Promoted to corporal on 27 July, Dwyer was killed on 3 September 1916 while leading his men in an attack that the battalion War Diary says began at noon that day near Guillemont on the Somme. A solemn High Mass was celebrated at St Thomas’s Roman Catholic Church on Sunday 17 September.
A mural medallion, representing the bust of the young hero in relief, was unveiled at the Fulham Central Library on Saturday 28 December 1918. The bulk of the cost was met by subscription by local schoolchildren. The proceedings began with the national anthem, followed with ‘The Lord is mindful of His own’ sung by Miss Christine Gordon. Sir Francis Lloyd, the former military commander of the London district, drew back the spacious flag that covered the medallion. Beneath was an inscription giving the details of Dwyer’s bravery. It reads:
VCs of the First World War 1915 The Western Front Page 8