The tragic story of the Leeds soldier who died minutes before the end of WW1
His story of is one of bravery and bad luck.
George Edwin Ellison was the last British soldier to be killed in action during the First World War.
He died at 9:30am on November 11, 1918 - 90 minutes before the armistice came into effect - shot by a sniper while on a patrol in woodland on the outskirts of Mons in Belgium.
Ellison was was born in York and later lived in Leeds. He enlisted in the British Army as a regular soldier in 1902 and saw three years of service with the colours. He was transferred to the reserves for the next nine years.
In 1911 he was a coal miner living in Leeds, and in 1912 he married Hannah Maria Burgan in Nottingham. Their son, James Cornelius, was born on in November 1913.
As a reservist, he was recalled to the army. He disembarked in France on August 26, 1914, with the 5th Royal Irish Lancers. His biography states that he fought in the Battle of Mons in 1914, and several other battles including the First Battle of Ypres.
Ellison, aged 40 at the time of his death, is buried in the St Symphorien Military Cemetery, just southeast of Mons.
Coincidentally, and in large part due to Mons being lost in the very opening stages of the war and regained at the very end (from the British perspective), his grave faces that of John Parr, the first British soldier killed during the Great War.
He was survived by Hannah and a son, James Cornelius living in Richmond Hill in east Leeds, as were Ellison's parents. The family only learnt of his death just before Christmas, more than a month after the war had ended.
Ellison's only brother Frederick was also killed during the war, in 1917.
Leeds Civic Trust unveiled a memorial plaque to him at Leeds City Station in 2018 , paid for via a public crowdfunding campaign. The Civic Trust's plaques are usually blue, but Ellison's is olive green to symbolise the uniform of the soldiers.