George William Crowfoot was born and brought up in Chelmsford where his parents were bakers, both dying before he was eleven years old. He worked as an assistant in a furniture store before moving to Devon where he married in 1910. He joined the army there during the war and died from wounds in France in April 1918.

George was born in Chelmsford in 1882, the son of George Crowfoot a master baker who had been born in 1847 in Norwich, Norfolk and Caroline Crowfoot (nee Sach), who had been born at Messing.

The couple had married on Christmas Day 1875 at Heybridge, at which time George’s father was a baker of Chelmsford, and the son of Thomas Robert Crowfoot, also a baker. George’s mother was of Heybridge, and the daughter of the carpenter George Sach.

By 1881 the couple were living in Legg Street, Chelmsford, but Caroline died in 1882 shortly after her son’s birth, aged 28. George was baptised at St. Mary’s Church, Chelmsford (later the Cathedral) on 16 August 1882, when his father was a baker of Legg Street.

George’s siblings included Ada Annas Crowfoot (born in 1876 in Chelmsford, died in 1958 ), and Annie Margaret Crowfoot (born in 1878 in Chelmsford, died in 1961).

George’s father subsequently married the widow Jane Collins at St. Mary’s Church, Chelmsford (later the Cathedral) on 24th February 1884. She had been born in Great Baddow around 1852 and had a son from her previous marriage.

George’s father died at Chelmsford from rapid consumption on 2nd December 1890, aged 48.

The 1891 census recorded nine year-old George living with his widowed stepmother (a baker), a sibling and step-sibling and a lodger at 9 Legg Street, Chelmsford. A decade later the next census found 19 year-old George with his stepmother at 11 Legg Street, He was employed as an assistant in a furniture shop, while his mother was a baker shopkeeper.

His stepmother died in tragic circumstances on 7th June 1905, aged 56, when she committed suicide through drowning in the River Chelmer at Springfield. At the time she was the debtor and one of the claimants in a County Court case being heard in Chelmsford.

George married Beatrice Mary Smerdon in Newton Abbot, Devon in 1910. She had been born in the town in 1884. In 1911 the couple were living at 20 Coronation Road in the town. George was aged 29 and a shop assistant in retail furnishing.

He enlisted into the army in Newton Abbot, He died from wounds on 2nd April 1918 while serving as Private 26310 in the A Company 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. George was aged 36. He is buried at Bois Guillaume Communal Cemetery Extension, near Rouen, Seine-Maritime in France (grave: C. 14A). Most of the 320 First World War burials in the cemetery came from No.8 General Hospital, which was quartered at Bois Guillaume in a large country house and grounds. He was entitled to the British War Medal and Victory Medal.

George is commemorated on the Civic Centre Memorial, Chelmsford and on the Newton Abbot War Memorial.

His widow married Lewis Bearne in Devon in 1923.

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