Regiment: 4th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment
Service No: TF/200561
Date & place of birth: November 1884 in Petworth
Date & place of death: 26 March 1917 (aged 32), Gaza
Private Alec George Gill was born and raised in Petworth and one of his older brothers also died in the war.
Family background
Alec George Gill was the son of Richard and Dinah Gill and was the youngest of four brothers; he also had a younger sister. His brother Charles Spencer was also killed in the war. Richard was a jobbing gardener of his own account and in 1911 Alec was a gardener’s assistant living at home in Fairview Petworth.
Military service
Alec enlisted in Petworth probably in August or September 1914 when the 4th Battalion were stationed at Horsham. The unit was engaged in the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and evacuated to Egypt in December 1915 having suffered many casualties from severe weather and disease as well as from fighting. They were then engaged in the Palestine campaign in 1916 and 1917.
Death and commemoration
Alec was killed, aged 22, during the first battle of Gaza which took place on the 26 and 27 March 1917. He is commemorated on the Jerusalem memorial.
Subsequent family history
His brother Charles Spencer Gill died in August 1917 in Belgium and he is also commemorated on the Petworth war memorial.