George Hooper is our grandfather. His early life is described in the page for his father Henry George Hooper. The area where he lived as a young boy is described in the page about 225 Green Street.

1901 - 1910

We know only one thing about George in this period - he learnt to drive, probably after 1908 when he was old enough. He started out in 1901 living with his mother and brother Albert and at some point he left home - maybe in 1909 after his mother died.

1911 - 1915

On 4th March 1911 George married Helen Grace Forrester. George was aged 22, Helen was 21.  She was the daughter of a disgraced law clerk from Canterbury who had been secretary to a friendly society, and embezzled them out of £700. After serving 3 months hard labour, the family  had to move to London. George probably never knew any of this.

The marriage took place in Eton, Buckinghamshire. They moved into 2 roomed  accommodation in St John’s Wood, where we can see them in the 1911 census.  George is a chauffeur domestic (meaning he drove for a family rather than a company).

At this time motor cars were still  not very numerous. Driving licences were introduced in 1903, but there was no requirement as yet for a driving test. You simply went to the post office and bought a licence for 5 shillings. The speed limit after 1906 was 12mph. Car ownership was mainly restricted to the rich and  most owners would employ a chauffeur in the same way that they would employ a coach  driver for horse drawn coaches. Driving was seen as a household servant’s job.  St. Johns Wood was a much grander area than either of them had come from. Whoever  George was working for as a chauffeur must have lived in the area.

George must have lost or given up his job as a chauffeur, because less than a year later, on the 15th April 1912  he started work as a tram driver (‘motorman’) for the London County Council, initially earning five shillings and threepence a day, about 30 shillings a week. Every six months his pay was increased by 6d a day.  When he joined they were living at 21 Haselrigge Road, Wandsworth with Helen's mother. Her father had died during the previous winter 1911/1912 and it seems that  George and Helen moved in with her mother soon after her father’s death. 

They had a child a year or so later on 11 Jun 1913, a daughter Daphne Ada. 

War was declared just over a year later.

1915 - 1917

When war was declared it had an immediate and ongoing impact on the tramwaymen employed by London County Council.  Thousands of them were of military age and a lot of these men enlisted in the army over the first few months of the war. This created a shortage of drivers and conductors, so the remaining men were forced to work overtime to maintain the services. They received no extra pay, and the situation worsened as more men enlisted. The LCC reacted to this in two ways. First they no longer took on new staff of military age,  under the age of 40.  Second, they advised the existing tramwaymen of military age not to enlist, because their jobs might not be available when they returned. They started recruiting older men and retraining office staff to run the trams. These measures effectively reduced the drain on staff but at the same time created unrest among staff who wanted to enlist but couldn't for fear of losing their jobs. 

Further unrest was caused by the payment of a war bonus of 3 shillings a week, which was paid only to staff earning less than 30 shillings a week. This effectively meant that no experienced tramwaymen would receive the bonus. By April 1915 the tramwaymen started to enlist again in the army so we can surmise that the threat of being unemployed after the war was removed. There is even a report in one newspaper that the LCC were not renewing the annual licences of some drivers and conductors who were of military service age, thus more or less forcing them to join the army.  

The final straw as far as the men were concerned was when plans were announced to employ women as conductors for the duration of the war. Ultimately the situation came to a head on 14th May 1915 when several thousand drivers and conductors went on strike. But there was no public support for such a strike, and within two weeks it was all over. The LCC told the strikers of military age to return their badges and uniforms to their depots and enlist in the army. There was a special recruiting office set up in Whitehall specifically for the thousands of LCC tramwaymen expected to enlist.

But George had already volunteered for the army two weeks prior to the strike, on 30 Apr 1915, joining the Royal Engineers. He must have taken the opportunity to enlist as soon as conditions permitted.

He was leaving his wife Helen and two year old daughter Daphne at home in Lyham Road, Brixton Hill. It seems probable that Helen and Daphne went to live again with Helen's mother while George was away in the army. His two brothers Henry and Albert were already serving, and Henry also had left a wife and children at home. 

George joined the Royal Engineers in the 204th Field  Company. The Royal Engineers provided technical support to infantry and artillery  regiments, building bridges, railways, earthworks, roads and so on. Each fighting regiment  had its own RE field company. Even though their main job was technical, soldiers of the RE all carried rifles and would be called upon to fight when necessary. 

He was promoted to Lance Corporal a few weeks later, possibly because he was already an  experienced driver. But soon afterwards he  had an accident which injured his left ankle. He was sent to the Army hospital at Chiseldon,  near Swindon in October 1915, and was discharged to light duties. 

On 6th November 1915 he  was transferred to the 21st Fortress company Royal Engineers, at  Landguard Fort Felixstowe, a rather bleak and forbidding place at the mouth of the River Orwell, which had protected the entrance to Harwich and Felixstowe since the 1600s.  Fortress companies provided  technical support to army bases in Britain, maintaining roads, water supplies, electricity  supplies and so forth. 

George remained at Landguard Fort for the whole of 1916 and  became  the driver for Col. Rowe of the Royal Artillery. But on 5 Mar 1917 he was discharged from the  Army after a medical examination, which concluded that he would never be fit enough for  active service.