GEORGE KERRIDGE

Lance Corporal George Wilbert Kerridge had been the first of the Papanui men to die on active service in France. He had been brought up in the family home in Vagues Road, enlisted in December 1914 and had served in Gallipoli, where he had been seriously wounded in the right leg in the May battles at Cape Helles. Evacuated back to Egypt for treatment, he apparently went missing for some time, but ended up being posted to the School of Instruction at Moascar in Egypt. In France he was promoted to Lance Corporal and began training in the use of the Stokes Light Trench Mortars. He was wounded in action, possibly in one of the harassing trench raids that the New Zealand Division had initiated, and died as a consequence of his wounds on 3 July 1916. He is buried in the Bon Jean Cemetery in Armentieres in northern France.

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