| Regiment/Service: |
9th Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers (British Army) |
| Date Of Birth: |
22/03/1897
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| Died: |
01/07/1916 (Killed in Action) |
| Age: |
19 |
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George Chambers was the son of William and Ann Jane Chambers. George was born on 22nd March 1897 in Sherrygroom, Stewartstown. He was the youngest of eleven children. The family moved to live in Milford, County Armagh sometime between 1901 and 1911. George Chambers enlisted in Armagh with the 9th Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Lance Corporal George Chambers was killed by machine gun fire on Saturday 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
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The village of Beaumont-Hamel was attacked on 1 July 1916 by the 29th Division, with the 4th on its left and the 36th (Ulster) on its right, but without success. On 3 September a further attack was delivered between Hamel and Beaumont-Hamel and on 13 and 14 November, the 51st (Highland), 63rd (Royal Naval), 39th and 19th (Western) Divisions finally succeeded in capturing Beaumont-Hamel, Beaucourt-sur-Ancre and St. Pierre-Divion. Following the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in the spring of 1917, V Corps cleared this battlefield and created a number of cemeteries, of which Ancre British Cemetery (then called Ancre River No.1 British Cemetery, V Corps Cemetery No.26) was one. There were originally 517 burials almost all of the 63rd (Naval) and 36th Divisions, but after the Armistice the cemetery was greatly enlarged when many more graves from the same battlefields and from the following smaller burial grounds.
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