Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJuly 6, 1896
Place of BirthNorwich, Norfolk
CountryEngland
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinHarry and Edith Mann (parents)
Service Details
Regimental Number9099 and 65890
Battalion7th Battalion Norfolk Regiment
ForceBritish Army
BranchBritish Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Date of EnlistmentJuly 21, 1914
Age at Enlistment18
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathNovember 1978
Age at Death82

Mann, Guy Edward

Lance Corporal Guy Edward Mann enlisted in the British army in July 1914 and served for almost five years in Great Britain and Western Europe. After the war he married and immigrated to Canada, later moving to the U.S.

Guy was the son of Harry James Mann and Edith Eliza Pilch of Norfolk, England. Harry and Edith were married in 1890 and they had at least ten children, most of them born in Norwich: Lionel Harry, Winifred Edith, Clara Olive, Guy Edward, Alan Charles, Ernest Fuller, Muriel Emma, Audrey Madge, Harry Frank and another child who died young. Guy was born in Norwich on 6 July 1896. His father was a shoe manufacturer but sometime after the 1901 census the family moved to Burgh St. Peter, about 30 km southeast of Norwich, where they took up farming. Guy’s parents were in Burgh St. Peter at the time of the 1911 census. Guy, age 14, was living with his uncle Edward Mann in East Ham, Essex and working as a stationer’s messenger.

Guy enlisted in the British army on 21 July 1914, signing up with the 7th Battalion Norfolk Regiment (reg. no. 9099). He had just turned 18 and the war started two weeks after he enlisted. He trained in Great Britain for fifteen months before being sent to France on 19 October 1915. Further details of his service are not known. When he was discharged in the UK on 14 March 1919 he was with the 3rd Battalion North Staffordshire Regiment (reg. no. 65890). His discharge was due to being physically unfit for further war service and he was awarded the Silver War Badge, which implies he was wounded or suffered illness during his time in service. He was also awarded the Victory Medal, the British War Medal and the 1914-15 Star.

Guy was married in the summer of 1920 in East Dereham, Norfolk. His wife, Florence Dorothy Whiteside (nee Horne), was a widow with three young children. Dorothy was born in 1893 in East Dereham, Norfolk. Her father, Robert Edwin Horne, was born in Norwich and her mother, Minnie Wells, in East Dereham. Minnie died in 1897 when Dorothy was four years old and Robert remarried two years later. Dorothy worked as a nursery governess and she married William Ernest Whiteside in 1912. They had two daughters and a son: Phyllis Elaine (1913), Edwin Ernest (1915) and Eileen Mabel (1918). William died in January 1919.

Dorothy and Guy had one daughter, Dorothy Guyena (Gena), born in Norfolk in 1921. Guy immigrated to Canada in the fall of 1924, arriving in Quebec on 18 October on the SS Doric. Dorothy and the four children followed a year later, sailing from Liverpool on 30 October on the SS Aurania. They were on their way to Kenora, Ontario where Guy was living. In December Guy became a member of the Great War Veterans’ Association, Kenora branch, and he said he was also a member of the British Legion. His wife was a musician and the local newspaper mentioned that she played at weddings.

By the early 1930s Guy and Dorothy’s marriage had ended. He moved to the U.S. and Dorothy and her four children stayed in the Kenora/Keewatin area. Gena attended local schools and Ernest joined the Kenora Light Infantry, a militia unit. Guy was married again on 24 November 1935 in the Bronx, New York. His wife, Veronika Kurp, was born in Germany around 1902 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1930. Guy and Veronika (Veronica) had one son, Edward Kurp Mann, born in New York on 5 August 1939.

Guy passed away in November 1978, at age 82. He was probably living in Queen’s, New York at the time. His son Edward attended Queen’s College and became a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. He died on 5 October 1985 and he’s buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Dorothy’s son Edwin (Ted) Whiteside served with the Winnipeg Grenadiers in the Second World War. He was killed in action in Hong Kong in December 1941, at age 26, and he’s commemorated on the Sai Wan Memorial in Victoria, Hong Kong. Dorothy lived in Winnipeg during the war but in 1949 she was living in Keewatin. It’s not known where or when she died. Her daughter Eileen (Mrs. Linhard Lindfors) passed away in Duncan, British Columbia in 1993 and Gena (Mrs. Frederick Arthur Beasant) died in Dryden, Ontario in 2016, at age 95.

By Becky Johnson


« Back To Soldier Biographies