| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
George Cyril Little was born in Beverley the 5 Jul 1893 and baptised at St Mary’s Church, Beverley the 2 Aug 1898. He was one of six children born to a cabinet maker called James Little and his wife Emily both born locally who married in 1879. George was brought up on Norwood but later moved to 19 St Mary’s Terrace. He became an assistant librarian for Beverley Corporation before the war.
George spent the war in the UK. On 28 Jun 1916 he joined the Royal Naval Air Service and was trained at Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire to be a wireless operator. He then moved to the RNAS station at Hornsea Mere. The RNAS local headquarters were at Killingholme, Lincolnshire. The base was situated on Kirkholme Nab, a peninsula that sticks out westward from the eastern shore of the Mere. A dozen seaplanes operated there, they were maintained in hangars reached by slipways and the planes took off and landed from the water. They flew coastal protection and anti-submarine duties. George was classified as an air mechanic but served as a “wireless telegraphist” and “observer”. He did however get airborne as his records note that he had suffered shock in an aeroplane accident. The base at Hornsea was transferred to the newly formed Royal Air Force on 1 Apr 1918 and George was duly transferred to them. He left the RAF in May 1919. As he had not served abroad he was not awarded the customary War and Victory Medals.
George returned to Beverley and was recorded living with his parents in the 1925 Electoral Register. Later in that year he may have married Marjorie M Vause in Beverley. George remarried in 1939. His second wife was Constance Mary Spamer, daughter of a docker, born in Hull in 1910. They had two children, the first born in Hull in 1940. The family lived at Welwyn Park Avenue, Hull where George worked as a clerk in the Ministry of Labour offices. George died in Mar 1963 aged 67 and was buried at Queensgate Cemetery, Beverley on 4 Apr 1963.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |