Where All Blacks Fell: A visit to the last resting place of a man who has no known grave

A finger points to the only reference left of the life of All Black George Sellars

Where All Blacks Fell: A visit to the last resting place of a man who has no known grave

8 May 2015

It was with a particular sadness that I visited the last resting place of the Ponsonby Club's All Black hooker from 1913 and 1914, George Sellars.

George was a top bloke, his family and friends all said, and no one would have been surprised that he died assisting a colleague on 7 June 1917. A part-Maori George was on the slopes of Messines Ridge in only his fifth day on the battlefield. It was typical that he saw a wounded colleague and rushed to help him. But a shell exploded near them both, so close that, to speak directly, George and his mate were blown to bits. 

So it is with a particular sense of irony that when one goes to pay tribute to some fallen footballers of WWI, a number of them are only represented by a name carved, albeit in honour, on a marble wall. Sad but true in the case of Private George Maurice Victor Sellars.

The photo was taken at the Messines Ridge Memorial.

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  • 27 December 2015 (8 years ago)

    Robomo

    Thanks Keith.
    George Sellars was my great-uncle and George was included as my middle name in his memory. I knew he was killed at Messines but not the circumstances. My father (George Sellars), nephew of GMV Sellars was a Ponsonby Football Club Stalwart and also played many games for Auckland and for Combined Services in England during WWII. I'm visiting Belgium in September 2016 and the Messines memorial is high on my list of places to visit.