BORN MARKET WEIGHTON, 1893. SON OF JOHN WEST (1865-1918) & LOUISA JACKETTS (1868-1966), OF 62 BALFOUR STREET, HULL AND 11, SOUTHCOATES LANE, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS).
HE HAD ONE BROTHER, JOHN PENROSE WEST (1890-1915) WHO DIED IN HULL, ON 27/10/1915, AGED 25 AND THREE SISTERS, LOUISA, AMELIA AND EDITH, LIVING AT GRANVILLE HOUSE, SOUTHCOATES LANE, HULL. EMPLOYED AS A SHIP’S JOINER. DESCRIBED AS 5 FOOT, 9.5 INCHES TALL, 144 LBS WEIGHT, 37-40 INCH CHEST, GREEN EYES, BROWN HAIR, CHURCH OF ENGLAND RELIGION.
HE ENLISTED IN HULL, ON 02/09/1914. SERVED WITH THE HULL PALS, IN EGYPT AND FRANCE. DIED AS PRISONER OR WAR, ON 25/08/1918, AGED 25. HE HAD SERVED IN THE ARMY FOR 3 YEARS AND 358 DAYS.
HE IS REMEMBERED ON ON HULL HYMERS COLLEGE MEMORIAL, THE KINGS HALL CHURCH ROLL OF HONOUR, THE SYMONS STREET, HULL AND THE MARKET WEIGHTON WW1 MEMORIALS.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE GEORGE WILLIAM WEST 10/148. Born in October 1893, George was the second of four children to John and Louisa West of 62 Balfour Street, Hull. A Ship’s Joiner before the war, he downed tools and queued to answer the call of King and Country in the long uneven lines of September 1914. You can almost hear the excited chatter of the men in those lines. They were family members, work colleagues, mates from pubs, blokes who played in the same football team….you can hear the banter, the jibes, any nerves evaporating in the late summer air. Back then it was all an adventure that was sure to be over by Christmas and each man longed to have his chance to fight before it was too late. George trained with the 10th Battalion throughout 1915 and served in Egypt before arriving in the trenches of the Western Front. He was a veteran of the Somme, Oppy Wood, the Spring Offensive and was within a few weeks of making it home when he was died on 25th August 1918. His family grave in Hull states that he died as a Prisoner of War and his final resting place in Lille Southern Cemetery would seem to bear that out as it was in German hands at this stage in the war. One thing is for sure, when he fell he was not surrounded by those same laughing faces of four years previous, most had already fallen, and the Hull he would have returned home to would have felt a lot emptier than the one he left.
George’s Service Record is one of the few still remaining and can be viewed on the Ancestry website ( for a fee unfortunately). It confirms that he was reported missing on April 12th 1918, confirmed as being a prisoner of war on July 17th 1918 and died in War Hospital 692 at Lille on 25 Aug 1918, confirmed in Jan 1919 Makes you wonder if the family had been told that he was a POW, raising their hopes only for those to be dashed a few months later. In the 1919 paperwork there’s no sign of his dad John. Everything is in his mother’s name and she and George’s three sisters are recorded as living at Granville House, Southcoates Lane. George’s dad was a fisherman who died in 1918, which would account as to why he doesn’t appear on the census and why he was not alluded to in the paperwork of 1919
