Harold Chell
- Family History
- Military History
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Harold Chell was born in 1890 at Kneesall and was the son of George Russell a Church of England priest and Alice Pope Chell née Haines they lived at The Vicarage Kneesall.His father George Russell was born in 1836 at Lydbrook, Gloucestershire and his mother Alice Pope Haines was born in 1849 at Dudley Port, Staffordshire, she died on 1st April 1916 in Northampton they were married on 30th August 1877 at All Saints Church, West Bromwich and went on to have the following children, George Russell Haines b1878, John Whley b1880 died 196, Mary Dorothea b1884, Alfred Henry b1887 and Harold born 1890 all were born in Kneesall. In the 1911 census the family are living at Kneesall and are shown as George Russell Chell 75 yrs a Church of England priest, he is living with his wife Alice Pope 62 yrs and their children, Mary Dorothea 27 yrs no occupation, Alfred Henry 24 yrs a farmer and Harold 21 yrs a medical student.
Lieutenant Harold Chell was a cadet in the Officer Training Corps and commission on 22nd August 1914 as Temporary Lieutenant into the 8th battalion Royal Fusiliers, he landed in France on 31st May 1915, he died of wounds on 10th August 1915 aged 26 yrs and is buried at Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France. Grave I. D. 33.
Article from the Shrewsbury School website :- Lieutenant Harold Chell, 8th Bn. Royal Fusiliers.Chance’s (now Severn Hill), left in 1908. He was Junior Whip, 1906; Senior, 1907; and in the Football XI and the Crew. He won the Junior Steeplechase, the Senior twice in successive years, and many events at the Sports in 1907-8, rowing also in the House boat, which won the Challenge Oars, and was Head of House of the River in the same year. He went up to St John’s Coll., Cambridge, and was studying Medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital, London, when war broke out. His brother Private Alfred Henry Chell enlisted at Newark, originally serving in the Middlesex Regiment with the service number 6413 he served with the 13th Princess Louise's Kensington Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, he was killed in action on 10th October 1916, he has no known grave, his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France.
