Ypres bell
- Height 413 mm
- Width 508 mm
- Weight 87 kg
- Note A
Ypres
In memory of George Foden Rooking Hall.
Given by George A.H. Hall and family.
The Ypres bell in the National War Memorial Carillon is one of several which is named for the fighting that took place in Belgium throughout 1917. The bell was given by George Hall and his family in memory of George’s eldest son (also George), who died in Belgium in the First World War.
George Hall
George Foden Rooking Hall was born in 1889, the second of Lily and George Hall’s four children. George’s father was a carpenter and the family lived in Wellington’s Hutt Valley. George was educated at Wellington College and later became an engineer, living for a time at Raetihi in the central North Island. In the years before the First World War, George served with the New Zealand Territorial Force, eventually becoming a lieutenant, though he resigned his commission in late 1913.
After war broke out in 1914, George travelled to England and enlisted with the Queen’s Own West Kent Yeomanry. He later transferred into the 103rd Field Company of the Royal Engineers, with whom he gained a commission as a second lieutenant in March 1917.
George was happy to be with the engineers, a unit which provided technical support to the infantry, and was less likely to be in the thick of the fighting: ‘Yesterday we had a lecture on bayonet fighting, a most gruesome affair. I am glad I am getting a commission in the Engineers and able to keep out of it, though I would not hang back if I was right in it. I have been all through the bayonet course and can use one with anyone. ... But this business is too awful to discuss in cold blood so I will stop.’ [1]
On 28 June 1917, three months after gaining his commission, George was killed in action in Belgium. He is buried in Dickebusch New Military Cemetery Extension, south-west of Ieper (Ypres). In 1926 his family gave the Ypres bell in his memory. The bell is likely named for the area of Belgium in which George died, rather than the Third Battle of Ypres which did not begin until the end of July 1917, one month after George’s death.
Further information
Commonwealth War Graves Commission record – George Hall
George Hall Territorial Force file – Archives NZ
London Gazette, 23 March 1917, supplement 29999, p. 2968
'Roll of honour', Dominion, 14 July 1917, p. 1
[1] George Foden Rooking Hall to father, 25 November 1916, in his probate file, 1919.
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