BORN HULL 1896. ORIGINAL HULL PAL. SON OF THOMAS & EDITH DEIGHTON, OF THIS ADDRESS (HULL DAILY MAIL, 040/6//19).
Hull Pals Memorial Post: PRIVATE GEORGE KILBY DEIGHTON 10/1247.
Born in 1896, George was the eldest of three children to Thomas and Edith Deighton of 44 Ryde Street, Beverley Road, Hull. A Clerk by trade he enlisted at Hull City Hall in April 1915 joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘ The Commercials’, 1st Hull Pals.
Training at barracks in Hornsea, Beverley and Ripon throughout 1915, George sailed from Devonport on December 8th bound for Alexandria, Egypt. The Pals were garrisoned there from just before Christmas to late February when they left Post Said for Marseilles and the trek north to the trenches of the Western Front.
George was killed in action during the bombardment of 4th June 1916 and is buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 19 years old. The little lie about his age had got him in uniform before his time.
The Recruiting Office in Hull was originally at 22 Pryme Street, in Hull but owing to the sheer number of volunteers it was moved to the newly built City Hall on 6th September 1914. A Recruiting Car would trawl the city and men followed it in their thousands to the queues in City Square where bands played from the balcony as men signed their lives to the King. George joined on 9th April 1915. He died in the small hours of an early summer Sunday just 14 months later. Hard not to think of the Pied Piper.
