214th Prince of Wales Company, Kings Royal Rifle Corps
Geoffrey was born in Sale in 1896. His father, Alfred, was a manufacturer of electrical equipment and the family lived in Beaufort Avenue, Brooklands. The career path he followed when he left school is uncertain as this is not recorded on the 1911 census.
The only surviving army record is his medal index card. This shows he enlisted as a Private in the 5th Royal Fusiliers and was later commissioned in the King's Royal Rifle Corps eventually reaching the rank of Acting Captain. His regiment landed in France on 19 April 1917. He was later attached to the Labour Corps and at the time of his death he was Officer Commanding 214 Prisoner of War Company.
The following is an extract from St John’s Church Magazine of October 1918:
In Memoriam
On September 8th, on active service in France, Geoffrey Goadsby Hough,
Captain K R R, aged 21 years
It is with genuine distress that we all heard that Mr and Mrs Alfred Hough had been bereaved of their only child, Geoffrey who had risen to the honoured position of a Captaincy in the K R R and who died in France from acute pneumonia, brought on by a zealous attention to his duties. He was Christened and Confirmed at St John's, and always afforded the example of a young man who, if the issues of war had spared him to his parents and the community, would by his abilities have advanced to manhood in a rigid observance of duty and integrity of purpose. Their many friends deeply deplore the sad blow that this war has inflicted on Mr and Mrs Hough in the great loss they have sustained in the death of their only and much loved son.
Geoffrey died on 8 September 1918, aged 21. He is buried in Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L'abbe, Somme, France and commemorated on our War Memorial at St. John’s.