PRIEST George Clayton

George Priest had been employed by the Great Western Railway. He enlisted in 1914 in the Royal Engineers and served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front where he was gassed. He was demobilised in February 1919 and returned to his home to find his 13 year old daughter dead in the house. His death occurred on the 8th April as he was about to return to his pre-war job with the GWR and was ‘attributed to war’s hardships’. He is also commemorated on the Methodist church memorial.

George Priest enlisted in the army on 2nd September 1914. He was passed medically fit on 21st December 1914 when he gave his age as 32 years and 15 days. George served 6 months in Gallipoli where he contracted dysentery in September 1915. He was treated first in a hospital in Malta before returning to the UK where he was admitted first to the 5th Southern General Hospital, Portsmouth on 8th October 1915 and then the 4th Northern General Hospital, Lincoln on 26th October 1916.  He was discharged on 30th October 1916 and passed fit for duty on 19th December 1916. He was posted overseas to France where he served for 8 months before being wounded. On 10th August 1917 he was admitted to a Field Ambulance Station with a gunshot wound to the neck. He was then transferred to the 2nd Canadian General Hospital where he was admitted on 11th August 1917. Two days later on 13th August he was invalided to the UK on a hospital ship. During 1918 and early 1919 George was admitted to hospital several times. He was discharged from the army on 17th March 1919.