PRIVATE 205067 GEORGE HURTLEY 7th BATTALION NORTHAMPTONSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 22nd MARCH 1918, AGED 27 YEARS.


PRIVATE 205067 GEORGE HURTLEY 7th BATTALION NORTHAMPTONSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 22nd MARCH 1918, AGED 27 YEARS.




The German Spring Offensive which had commenced on the 21st March 1918 continued the following day. Infiltration tactics and lightening artillery bombardments had caused considerable confusion in the British lines to the north of the Somme Valley. The British rushed reserve battalions forward to try and stem the retreat but they often came into action in a piecemeal fashion and coordination of counterattacks was difficult.

The 7th battalion Northamptonshire Regiment was one such unit thrown in to slow the German advance on the 22nd March 1918. But often the speed of events overtook the orders that were given by the British High Command and units were frequently left not knowing their objective. the battalion was ordered forward near the village of Le Verguier but then forced to retreat as the German continued to cause havoc with the new style of attack. As the Northamptons began to retreat they began to suffer casualties including Private George Hurtley who was missing presumed killed.

George was born in Bradford on 21st December 1890 the son of Thomas Hurtley and his wife Jane. His father was a gardener who loved with his family on Duckworth Lane in the Girlington area of the city. George would follow in his father's footsteps and also become a gardener. In 1913 and now living on Naples Street off Whetley Lane he married a local girl Lucy Sibley Clark. Shortly afterwards, the newly married couple moved to the Denton Park Estate where George took up new employment.

It appears that George enlisted as a trooper in the Yorkshire Dragoons a yeomanry cavalry unit. He went to France sometime in 1916 but was later transferred into the Northamptonshire Regiment, although, the precise date or reason for this are unknown.

Private George Hurtley has no known grave and is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at Pozieres and remembered with pride on our war memorial in Ilkley.

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