| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
A photograph of 25 year old 2nd Lieutenant G W Lawson was published in the Beverley Guardian the 3 May 1919, when his mother Louisa was asking for any information about her missing son. He had in fact died on 11 Apr 1918 – more than a year earlier.
George was born and brought up in Leeds. His father’s family were drapers, originally from Brampton in Cumberland but his father William was born at Tynemouth and the family were living in Leeds at the time of the 1881 Census. George was born in Jan 1893 and baptized at St Luke’s in the parish of Beeston Hill, Leeds. William died on 23 Mar 1895 aged 27, when George was 2 and his sister, Winifred less than a year. In 1901 George, his mother and sister are living with their maternal grandparents at 5 Bagby Square, Leeds and his mother lists her occupation as tailoress. In 1911 Louisa is head of the household at 7 Bagby Square, working in a clothing factory and George is a clerk in a clothing factory.
George enlisted with the 8th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment on 1 Sep 1914 and was quickly promoted, arriving in France as a Corporal in Aug 1915. He was awarded his Commission to 2nd Lieutenant in Sep 1917 aged 24. The war diary of the 5th Yorkshire Regiment, to which he was attached in 1918, tells of the Battle of Estaires and the defending of the River Lys on 10 and 11 Apr against machine gun, light field artillery fire and heavy shelling. It records 2nd Lt G H Lawson as missing. George has no known grave but is remembered with honour at the Ploegsteert Memorial less than 10 miles south from Ypres.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |