| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
George came to Beverley working as the representative for the Hull Herald newspaper. He was born and baptised in Filey in 1893, the eldest son of stonemason, George Ruslin Preston and Alice Ann (nee Welburn). The family moved to Bridlington where brother Norman and sisters Myrtle and Maud were born. George’s mother died in 1905 and his father married Ada Ann Hough in Holy Trinity Church, Bridlington in 1909. In 1911 George was living at Norcliffe, Sewerby Terrace, Bridlington run by Ada as a lodging house, while father George worked as a stonemason. Norman followed in his father’s footsteps but George became a journalist. He worked for the Bridlington Free Press and the York Herald before moving to Beverley. George married Hilda Marton, the only daughter of David and Betsy who lived in Minster Moorgate, Beverley in 1914.
George enlisted at Hull with the Royal Army Medical Corp as Private 1790 Preston and he arrived in France in May 1915, leaving Hilda and their 3 month old son, George Eric at 24 Minster Moorgate. From letters written to work colleagues and published in the Beverley Guardian in June 1915, we know he was initially at No 6 General Base Camp, Rouen, “living in canvas huts”, “wielding picks and shovels” and “getting fairly well fed”. At some point he acquired a new service number and became a member of 2nd/3rd (Northumberland) Field Ambulance and by 1917 was attached to 1/5th Border Regiment around Arras. On 29 Sep 1917 a further letter was published in the Beverley Guardian but on this occasion, written to Hilda Preston by the Chaplain of 20 Casualty Clearing Station to say her husband, having been very seriously wounded in the base of the skull, had died on 21 Sep and had been buried the same day at Bucquoy Cemetery, Ficheux.
George is remembered in Beverley Minster and on the Hengate Memorial, but also on the Bridlington Cenotaph and the Roll of Honour at Wenlock Barracks, Hull.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |