In loving memory of George Goodfellow, aged 11 years and Henry Berry, aged 8 years who were drowned by falling through the Ice trying to save a fellow playmate at Hoole on January 17th 1905. This memorial has been erected to perpetuate their memory by sympathising friends and playmates.
A contemporary newspaper account records the following account:
Two schoolboys gave their lives for a comrade at Hoole, Chester. After school hours, Henry Berry, eight, and George Goodfellow, eleven, visited a deep pit near their homes with a view of testing the ice covering it. There were a number of other lads present and one, Bertie Wright, a son of the Chester Police Court missionary ventured on to the ice as far as the centre of the pond. The ice broke and he went under, but Berry and Goodfellow pluckily went to his assistance. It was not long before all three were struggling together in the water. Wright, however, managed to keep afloat until rescued by some workmen, but the two little heroes who had gone out to save him sank and their lifeless bodies were not recovered until half an hour later.
Sad to say there is a similar memorial to two brothers who drowned in the Thames. They lived nextto the churchyard they are buried in and the memorial shows two boys.
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