Name
George Draper
1887
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
09/10/1916
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Rifleman
301277
London Regiment *1
1st/5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 9D
France
Headstone Inscription
N/A
UK & Other Memorials
Ayot St Peter's Memorial,
Roll of Honour, St Peter's Church, Ayot St Peter
Pre War
George Day was born in 1887 in Ayot St Peter, Herts. He was one of the sons of George Draper and his wife Sarah who kept a shop in Ayot Green from 1886 and also ran the smithy next door.
On the 1911 Census he was living with his parents at Ayot St Peter, Welwyn, where his father was a blacksmith and agricultural machinist and he was working as a Wholesale Draper's Clerk.
The Hertfordshire Express reports on the 18th of August 1917 that he left Ventnor Sanatorium in January 1915 and made several attempts to join up.
Wartime Service
George enlisted in London the following March and served with the London Regiment, 1st/5th Bn, (London Rifle Brigade). He left for France after a few months training.
The Hertfordshire Express goes on to say that he was wounded on the 1st of July 1916 and spent ten weeks in hospital in France. "Having rejoined his regiment, he took part in an attack on the German trenches on October 8, 1916, and no news was since received of him."
He was killed in action during the Battle of the Somme. His father received official news in August 1917 that George "must be presumed to have been killed on October 9,1916 or since" after having been reported missing nine months earlier. His body was not recovered for burial or not identified. His name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.
Additional Information
Probate granted on 10 October 1917 to Lt David Knights-Whittonie, 2nd Lieutenant. Effects £277 5s 3d. Death gratuity granted of £6. Brother to William (Farrier-Sergeant, R.F.A.; in Salonika at the time of George's death) Samuel (a driver in the M.T., A.S.C. in France.
Also named on the Ayot St Peter Memorial), David (was in India before the war and joined the European Forces in Calcutta), and John (working at the Y.M.C.A. Hut in Berkhamsted, being medically unfit).
*1 More correctly London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade).
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Brenda Palmer, Derry Warners
www.ayotstpeter.com
