Recently the Museum put out a request for help in the search to identify George White, the first City player to be killed in WW1, in a Reserves team photo in 1911, we have had a breakthrough!
‘Brave Sons of Berkshire’. This is the standout headline in the Reading Standard’s edition of Saturday 12th December 1914.
And under that, there’s the last line of Kipling’s poem For All We Have And Are: ‘Who dies if England live?’
The rest of the page is taken up with portraits of thirty-three of those ‘brave sons’ who had lost their lives or had been wounded. Among them is ‘The late G.T. White, of Peppard Road, Caversham, 1st Devon Regiment – killed in action.’
Despite the darkness of the image, it’s the forelock and the shape of the moustache that helps to identify George White. So in that 1911 City Reserves team photo – remember that? – George, it would appear, is the one with the ball at his feet.
The discovery was made by Alison Flack – who happens to be related to the player to George’s right, Jimmy Rigby. She noticed the link to George in a family tree on the Ancestry website.
And so of the thirteen City players known to have perished in World War One, there remains just one for whom we don’t have an image:
John Addems Webb, who died in April 1915, had played for the City Reserves towards the end of the 1913-14 season.
His captain? George White.