PRIVATE48465 GEORGE EDWARD CALVERT 2/6th NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 30th NOVEMBER 1917, AGED 21 YEARS.


PRIVATE48465 GEORGE EDWARD CALVERT 2/6th NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 30th NOVEMBER 1917, AGED 21 YEARS.



George Calvert was born in the tiny village of Coatham, near to Redcar on the Yorkshire Coast in Cleveland. His mother is known to have been called Agnes but there are no details of his father and it is possible that he was illegitimate. He spent has childhood in the care of his elderly grandfather whose death just before the war caused him to move down to Ilkley. George had an older sister Ellen who appears to have worked in domestic service at Ghyll Royd on Grove Road and who in 1913 married a local man called Harry Robinson. The newly married couple lived at 7 Castle Yard where George joined them after the death of his grandfather.


It appears that George enlisted into the army during late 1916 and was posted to the 2/6th North Staffordshire Regiment sometime the following year. In November of that year the battalion was heavily involved in the attacks at Cambrai and on the 30th of that month were manning the trenches near to Bourlon Wood. Early British success in the battle prompted fierce counter-attacks by the Germans. The trenches held by the North Staffs were the subject of prolonged shelling by both high explosive and Mustard Gas causing over 300 casualties in just a few hours. Sadly, George was one of those men who were killed.

Private George Calvert has no known grave and is commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial to the Missing and remembered with pride on Ilkley War Memorial




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