Pte 50285 George Wood

• Age: 31
• From: Blackburn
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 20th Btn
• D.O.W Sunday 1st July 1917
• Commemorated at: Railway Dugout B.g. Zillebeke
  Panel Ref: Sp.Mem.F12

George Wood was born on the 16^th November, 1885 in Blackburn. He was the son of the son of Abraham Wood and his wife Sarah (nee Gimney). George was a twin; his twin brother Joseph sadly died in infancy. His parents were both born in Manchester.  Abraham Wood, 32, bachelor, married Sarah Fletcher, 36, widow, in Blackburn in August 1885.  His mother had married Edward Coop Fletcher, a professor of music, in 1876, and was widowed in 1882. 

Although a school record shows his birthdate as 16th November 1886, this is likely an error, as his birth was registered in December 1885, and his ages on censuses, at marriage, and at death support the 1885 date.

At the time of the 1891 census the family is living at 26 Warwick Street, Blackburn. His father, 36, is a manufacturing chemist's labourer, and his mother is 40.  Four step siblings are in the home, Albert Fletcher (parentage unknown), 18, born Liverpool, a butcher;  Adeline, 14, Ernest, 12, and Rosaline Fletcher, 10, all born in Bradford, Yorkshire, are at school;  George is 5 years old.  Also in the household his grandfather Joseph Wood, 66, born in  Darwen, a retired billiard table maker, and three lodgers.

He attended St. Paul's School, Blackburn. 

The 1901 census finds them at 45 New Park Street, Blackburn. His father is a fruit warehouseman, Adeline, 24, and Rosaline, 20, work in a cotton mill, and George, 15, is a grocer's apprentice.

He married Edith Giles on the 25^th December, 1907 at St Barnabas Church, Blackburn. Edith was aged 22 and was born in 1885 at Darwen and was a cotton weaver. George's occupation was shown as a grocery manager, address 16 George Street West. 

Prior to the outbreak of the war he had been employed as a grocery manager with the Co-Operative Society.

The 1911 Census shows George and Edith living at 29 Barton Street, Blackburn. Also at the address is Harriet Giles, Edith's mother, she is a widow aged 54, born 1857 and occupation home worker.  

George was conscripted in March 1917, as Private 37976, East Lancashire Regiment. He was subsequently transferred to the 20th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 50285 at Etaples in June 1917. 

George died of wounds on the 01st July, 1917, aged 31.

His death was reported in the local press:

"Private George Wood (31) of the King's Liverpool Regiment, died of wounds on the 1st inst. at a casualty clearing station in France.  Enlisting so recently as March 19th 1917, he was drafted to France last month.  Prior to the war he was the manager of the London Road branch of the Industrial Co-operative Society.  His wife resides at 29, Barton Street.  A comrade of the deceased soldier, in a letter home, states that, "a shell burst in the trench killing one outright, and severely wounding George, who died on the way to the dressing station.  His loss has completely upset all the boys, as he was very popular."  A memorial service will be held at Trinity Wesleyan Church tomorrow (Sunday), which church he attended as a lad."

(George's name did not appear on the Trinity Wesleyan Church Memorial Window, sadly now lost.)

He now rests at Railway Dugout Burial Ground, Zillebeke, Belgium. 

Railway Dugouts Burial Ground is 2 Km west of Zillebeke village, where the railway runs on an embankment overlooking a small farmstead, which was known to the troops as Transport Farm.  Burials began there in April 1915 and continued until the Armistice, especially in 1916 and 1917, when Advanced Dressing Stations were located in the dugouts and the farm.  The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.  In the summer of 1917 a considerable number were obliterated by shell fire before they could be marked. The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.

At the time of the Armistice, more than 1,700 graves in the cemetery were known and marked. Other graves were then brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries in the vicinity, and a number of the known graves destroyed by artillery fire were specially commemorated. The latter were mainly in the present Plots IV and VII.

The cemetery now contains 2,459 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 430 of the burials are unidentified and 261 casualties are represented by special memorials. Other special memorials record the names of 72 casualties buried in Valley Cottages and Transport Farm Annexe Cemeteries whose graves were destroyed in later fighting.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

George's grave was one such as the inscription on his headstone reads:

“THEIR GLORY SHALL NOT BE BLOTTED OUT”

This phrase was decided upon by Rudyard Kipling and is used when the burial place of a soldier is not known. It is a biblical reference from Ecclesiasticus 44:13 which reads in full as: "Their seed shall remain forever, and their glory shall not be blotted out". 

His widow Edith received his Army effects and a War Gratuity of £3, and was awarded a pension of 13/9d a week from January 1918, which was changed to an alternative pension of £1-8s-2d from 1920. 

George is commemorated in Blackburn's WW1 Book of Remembrance. 

We currently have no further information on George Wood, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.