9th (County of London) Bn., The London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles)

Born:
14 May 1892, St Peter's Vicarage, Bethnal Green, London.

Died:
10 December 1968.

Buried:
14 December 1968, St Mary's Churchyard,West Chiltington,
close to grave of General H.R.B. Foote, VC

Commissioned:
4 August 1914, 5th Bn Essex Regt.

CITATION

For most conspicuous bravery on Hill 60 during the night of 20-21 April 1915. Although the only officer on the hill at the time, and with very few men, he successfully resisted all attacks on his trench and continued throwing bombs and encouraging his men till relieved. His trench during all this time was being heavily shelled and bombed and was subjected to heavy machine-gun fire by the enemy.

Gazetted: 22 May 1915.

Investiture: Not Known.

Other Decorations: OBE, MC (MID (3)).

Other Medals: 1914 Star, BW, VM. 1939-45 Star,
Africa Star, DM, WM.

Location of Medals: Not publicly held.

Personal:
Born at St Peter's Vicarage, Bethnal Green, London on 14 May 1892, son of the Rev George Herbert Woolley (who had been working in the East End of London for over twenty-five years) and of Sarah Woolley (nee Cathcart). He was educated at St John's Leatherhead and at Queen's College, Oxford and joined the Army on 4 August 1914 as a Second Lieutenant in the 5th Battn the Essex Regiment. When the Essex Territorial Brigade was split up in Sept 1914, he was transferred to the 9th Battn The London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles) and went out to France with them in November 1914. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in "The British Campaign in France and Flanders in 1915" (page 40): "Tuesday, 20 April, was another day of furious shell fire. A single shell upon that morning blew in a parapet and buried Lieut Watson with twenty men of the Surreys. The Queen Victoria's under Colonel Shipley, upheld the rising reputation of the Territorial troops by their admirable steadiness. Maj Lees, Lieut Summerhayes, and many others died an heroic death; but there was no flinching from that trench, which was so often a grave. As already explained, there was only one trench and room for a very limited number of men on the actual crest, while the rest were kept just behind the curve, so as to avoid a second Spion Kop. At one time upon this eventful day a handful of London Territorials, under a boy officer, Woolley of the Victoria's were the only troops upon the top, but it was in safe keeping none the less."

"Deeds that Thrill the Empire" (page 873) says: "Early in the eventful August of 1914, a young undergraduate of Queen's College, Oxford, the son of a clergyman, and who, but for the outbreak of war, would have been by this time a clergyman himself, joined the 5th Battn Essex Regt., and went with them to Drayton near Norwich, where that unit was to undergo its training under the command of Colonel J.M. Welch. His stay with the 5th Essex was very brief, however, for on 26 August he was transferred to the Queen Victoria's Rifles. This young man was Second Lieut Geoffrey Harold Woolley, who was to have the honour of being the first Territorial officer to win the Victoria Cross. The Queen Victoria's Rifles crossed the Channel in November 1914 and in due course proceeded to take their turn in the trenches with the regular battalions of the 5th Division, to which they were attached, when they came in on occasion for some pretty severe shelling. But they were not employed in attack until the affair at Hill 60 in the following April, which was an experience none of them is ever likely to forget. Hill 60 - hill by the way, only by courtesy, since it is, in point of fact, merely an earth-heap from the cutting of the Ypres-Lille railway - lies a little to the west of Klein Zillebeke and just east of the hamlet of Zwartleben, the scene of the famous charge of our Household Cavalry on the night of 6 November 1914. Its importance was that it afforded an artillery position from which the whole German front in the neighbourhood of Chateau Hollebeke could be commanded. At seven o'clock in the evening of 17 April, the British exploded seven mines on the hill, which played havoc with the defences, blowing up a trench line and 150 men, after which, under cover of heavy artillery fire, the position was stormed by the 1st West Kents and the 2nd King's Own Scottish Borderers, who entrenched thenselves in the shell craters and brought up machine guns. During the night several of the enemy's counter-attacks were repulsed with heavy loss, and fierce hand-to-hand fighting took place; but in the early morning the Germans succeeded in forcing back the troops holding the right of the hill to the reverse slope, where, however, they hung on throughout the day. In the evening the West Kents and the King's Own Scottish Borderers were relieved by the 2nd West Ridings and the 2nd Yorkshire Light Infantry, who again stormed the hill, under cover of heavy artillery fire and drove the enemy off with the bayonet. But Hill 60 was of vital importance to the enemy if they intended to maintain their Hollebeke ground, and on the 19th and 20th a terrific cannonade was directed against them. In the evening of the latter day came another determined infantry attack, while all the night parties of the enemy's bomb-throwers kept working their way up to our trenches. At 9.30 that night two companies of the Queen Victoria's, under Major Rees and Capt Westby, received orders to advance from their trenches and take up a position close to the top of the hill. Although the distance to be traversed was only some 200 yards, so terrible was the fire to which they were exposed that it took them two hours to reach the post assigned to them, where they dug themselves in close to a huge crater made by one of the British mines which had been exploded on the 17th. Towards midnight Sergt E.H Pulleyn was ordered to take sixteen men up to the very crest of the hill, some twenty yards away, to fill a gap in our trench-line there. A withering fire was immediately opened upon his party by the enemy, who were not thirty yards distant, and only the Sergeant and eleven of his men reached the position, while of the survivors five fell almost immediately. Pulleyn and the remaining six maintained their ground for a few minutes, when, recognising the impossibility of holding it longer, they retired and rejoined their comrades, carrying their wounded with them. Both Major Rees and Capt Westby had already been killed and of 150 riflemen who had followed them up the fatal hill, two-thirds had fallen. The remainder held on stubbornly, however, and so accurate was their fire that the Germans did not dare to advance over the crest. But the cross-fire to which our men were exposed was terrible; never for a moment did it slacken and man after man went down before it. When day began to break there were but thirty left. It was at this critical moment that an officer was seen making his way up the hill towards them. The men in the trench held their breath; it seemed to them impossible that anyone could come alive through the midst of the fearful fire which was sweeping the slope; every instant they expected to see him fall to rise no more. But on he came, sometimes running, sometimes crawling, while bullets buzzed past his head and shells burst all about him, until at last he climbed the parapet and stood amongst them, unharmed. Then they saw that he was Second Lieut Woolley, who learning that their officers had been killed, had left the security of his own trench and run the gauntlet of the enemy's fire to take charge of that gallant little band. His arrival put fresh heart into the Queen Victoria's, and there in that trench, choked with their dead and wounded comrades, shelled and bombed and enfiladed by machine guns, this Oxford undergraduate, the two brave NCO's Pulleyn and Peabody, and their handful of Territorials, held the German hordes at bay, hour after hour, repelling more than one attack, in which the young Lieutenant rendered excellent service by the accuracy of his bomb-throwing, until at last relief came. Of four officers and 150 NCO's and men who had ascended the hill the previous night, only two NCO's and one man answered the roll-call. But, though they had suffered grievously, the battalion had gained great honour, both for themselves and the whole Territorial Force. Second-Lieut Woolley had the proud distinction of being the first Territorial officer to be awarded the Victoria Cross, while Sergt Pulleyn and Corpl Peabody each received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for 'the great gallantry and endurance displayed and for the excellent service rendered in the fight for the possession of Hill 60.' Other decorations which had fallen to the share of the Queen Victoria's Rifles up to the end of 1915, were: Lieut-Colonel R.B. Shipley - CMG; Capt S.J. Sampson - MC; Sergt E.G. Burgess - DCM." Second-Lieut Wooley returned to England on sick leave in June 1915 and assisted for two months as Instructor at Cambridge School of Instruction. In October 1915,he rejoined his unit in France. He was promoted to Captain 26 April 1915. In March 1916, he was appointed Instructor at the Third Army Infantry School. In August 1916, he was appointed GSO3 at Third Army Headquarters. In December 1916, he returned to the 3rd Army Infantry School. On the opening of the German Offensive in March 1918 he served for a month with the Headquarters 17th Division, and was then reappointed GSO3 at 3rd Army Headquarters, where he served till after the Armistice, doing liaison work with the troops of the 4th Corps. He was mentioned in Despatches 23 December 1918 and awarded the Military Cross (London Gazette 3 June 1919). He married Mrs Janet Beatrix Culme-Seymour, widow of Capt George Culme-Seymour, 60th Rifles and daughter of the late C.L. Orr Ewing MP of Dunskey, Portpatrick.

Commemoration:
Headstone.