George Rue was born on 18th May 1892 and baptised on 7th August in 1892 in Llanharry. His parents were Walter Rue and Jane nee Pole. He had one older sister, Emma and an older brother, Arthur.
His parents had 3 futher boys, Albert, Walter and Wallace, although Wallace died as a very young baby.
George’s father died in 1895 folowing a mining accident. George would have been just 3 years old and is unlikely to have remembered his father at all.
His mother went on to remarry, to Thomas Edwards, and have a further 5 children. The 5 surviving Rue children and the 5 Edwards children were all raised together and appear to have been quite close.
In the 1901 census, George is with his mother Jane and his step father Thomas Edwards living somewhere near Aberavon in the Neath district. He was aged 10.
By 1911 the family had moved to a farm in Crynant, Neath and George was still with them. He was now aged 19, single and working as a coal hewer. I do not know which mine.
On 5th February 1912 George married Elizabeth Maud Palin in Neath.
They went on to have 2 sons – Alfred Walter in September 1912 and Oliver in January 1916, both born in the Neath area.
On 27th May 1918 George signed up with the Army to serve in the 1st World War. He had previously been working in the coal mine in Crynant.
On signing up he was 28 years old, 5 feet 61/4 inches tall, and weighed 152lbs. He had fair/light brown hair, a fresh complexion and blue eyes.
It seeems that on signing up he had a problem with his left leg/foot. He had had a “fracture of his left leg caused by accidentally injuring himself with a hatchet in the colliery” in 1913. He was then “off work for 8 months and has been lame ever since”.
It seems that on 24th June 1916 he received a notice to enlist in the war effort, which he didn’t do anything about until May 1918 – presumably due to his second son having only been born in the January of 1916.
On signing up in May 1918 he was given an “A” grade as to “medical classification as to fitness for service” but by 26th August 1918 was on the receiving end of a medical report “transferring him to the reserves as an invalid” and citing the accident he received in the colliery in 1913 as the reason. His service record seems to indicate that he went no further than Brecon and Oswestry.
I believe that George died in 1975.