Ellis, George
Lieutenant Commander (S)
Royal Navy, HMS Caroline
Died of disease on Monday 7 May 1945 (aged 68)
Buried:
Bangor Cemetery, Newtownards Road, Bangor, Co. Down (Section 4.U. Grave 112)
Commemorated:
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
BIOGRAPHY
Lieutenant Commander (S) George Ellis lived at 38 Broadway, Bangor and he died on 7 May 1945 in Bangor Military Hospital after a short illness. He was born on 13 March 1877 in Balbriggan, Ireland and he was the eldest son of the late William and Juliana (Julia) Ellis (nee Marsh) who lived in Hamilton Road, Bangor. William Ellis and Juliana Marsh were married on 6 June 1876 in St George’s Church of Ireland Church, Balrothery, Balbriggan. William Ellis (aged 30), a coastguard officer stationed in Balbriggan, was a son of Edmund Ellis, a farmer. Juliana Marsh (aged 23) from the coastguard station was a daughter of George Marsh, a coastguard officer.
William and Juliana Ellis (nee Marsh) had at least eight children including:
George (born 13 March 1877 in Balbriggan)
Eleanor (born 31 May 1878 in Balbriggan)
Julia (born 25 June 1879 in Balbriggan; married David Ewing Gardiner on 18 June 1900 in Bangor Parish Church of Ireland Church, St. Comgall’s)
William (born 15 June 1881 in Balbriggan)
James Blake (born 24 December 1886 in Kingstown)
Harriet Martha Maria (born 5 April 1889 in Kingstown)
Sarah Anne (born 10 April 1892 in Orlock; married William Brown on 15 April 1922 in Bangor Abbey)
George Ellis attended the Royal Hospital School, Greenwich, London and he entered the Royal Navy as a boy. He rose to commissioned rank and was on active service during the Great War.
George Ellis’s first wife died and he and Beatrice Annie Holdnall, who was born in 1881, were married on 22 June 1907 in the Parish Church, Stoke Damerel, Plymouth. They had at least one child:
William George Ellis (born 1 March 1909 in Stoke Damerel)
The Ellis family lived at 62 Whittington Street, Pennycomequick, Plymouth.
George Ellis was recalled to service at the beginning of the Second World War and was placed in charge of the supply base at Pollock Dock in Belfast. HMS Caroline was a C-class light cruiser built in 1914 by Cammell Laird of Birkenhead and during the Second World War HMS Caroline served as the Royal Navy’s headquarters in Belfast harbour.
A keen bowler, George Ellis was Vice-President of Bangor Bowling Club. He was survived by his wife, his brother William and three sisters: Mrs Eleanor McClure, Belfast; Miss Harriet Ellis, Bangor and Mrs William Brown, Glasgow.
It was reported in the 12 May 1945 edition of the County Down Spectator that Lieutenant Commander George Ellis’s only son, Dr William George Ellis, who before the war was a zoology lecturer at Liverpool University, had died on active service early in the war. Dr William George Ellis is commemorated on the University of Liverpool Second World War Memorial Plaque.
William George Ellis and Rachel Iris Kithuga Crawhall (born 30 July 1919 in Bavaria) were married on 4 April 1936 in Bangor Registrar’s Office, Caernarvonshire, Wales. Her death was registered in the third quarter of 1974 in Taunton, Somerset.
Lieutenant Commander (S) George Ellis was 68 when he died and he was buried in Bangor Cemetery, Newtownards Road, Bangor, Co. Down.
His widow, Beatrice Annie Ellis (nee Holdnall), died on 29 November 1957 at Woodlands Road, Sparkhill, Birmingham.