Chailey Parish Magazine notes in its October 1918 edition: Mitchell, Rifleman M, KRR [King’s Royal Rifle Corps].  This entry is then repeated up to and including the final published entry in July 1919. 

M Mitchell is Maurice Gilbert Mitchell who appears on the 1901 census as a nine month old baby living with his family at Plummers Den Cottage Number One, Lindfield, Sussex.  The household comprised Charles Mitchell (head, aged 42, a farm labourer born in Lindfield), his wife Emily (aged 41, born in Chailey) and their seven children: Charles Mitchell (aged 19, a gardener, born in Newick), Henry Mitchell (aged 18, a carter on a farm, born in Chailey), John Mitchell (aged 13, born in Horsted Keynes), Elsie Mitchell (aged seven), Walter (aged five), Wallace(aged three) and Maurice. The last four children had all been born in Lindfield.

There were also two other sons: Alfred Thomas Mitchell (aged 16, a grocer’s porter, born in Lindfield) and Albert Basil Mitchell (aged ten, a schoolboy, born in Lindfield).  At the time the 1901 census was taken they were at Plumpton at the home of William and Mercy Plummer.  Mercy Plummer was their mother Emily’s half sister.

Maurice was probably born around June 1900 so would only have been 18 in 1918, hence his brief appearance in Chailey’s parish magazine.  I have been unable to find a medal index card for him at The National Archives in London and it is quite possible that he did not serve abroad.

Maurice’s brothers Albert, Alfred, Henry, John and Sidney also served their King and Country during the First World War.  All survived.  Their distant relatives, the Plummer brothers, were less fortunate.  Albert, Alexander and Owen Plummer all lost their lives.