George Lewis Dyer was the only son born to Harriet Dyer from Eaton Bray in Hertfordshire. He was born in the Autumn of 1891 in Hemel Hempstead and spent his early years living on Bury Road before his mother married Harry Bates in 1902 when George was eleven years old. His step-father was a widower with four children, so following the marriage George gained three new step-brothers, Percy, Harry and Archie and a step-sister Bertha. These new siblings were soon followed by another half-sister Ethel and a half-brother Edward.

His three step-brothers Percy, Archie and Harry all saw service in the Great War. Percy and Harry survived but Archie was killed almost exactly a year to the day after George and his biography also appears on this site.

When young George left school, he started work in a local brewery where he trained as a ‘Maltsters Labourer’, possibly in the ‘Anchor’ or ‘Star’ breweries situated on or close to Bury Road where he had lived. In his early twenties he joined John Dickinson & Co Limited in Apsley Mills where five of his family already worked.

George enlisted under the Group or Derby Scheme, attesting in Hemel Hempstead in October 1915 and joining the Hertfordshire Regiment. He was posted initially to the 3rd Battalion at Hertford where he underwent his basic training before he was sent to France in early April 1916 as a draft to reinforce the 1st Battalion Hertfordshires.

He saw action in the trenches over the next few months in the vicinity of Festubert before the Battalion fought in the Battle of Ancre Heights in October, the last action of the Somme offensive. It fulfilled mainly a support role but despite this suffered heavy enemy shelling for prolonged periods and it was as a result of being hit by a shell that George was unfortunately killed.

He died on Saturday, 14th October 1916.

George’s death was reported in the Hemel Gazette in late October 1916 along with a letter of sympathy from his C.O. Capt. Frank Pawle.

George was honoured in a memorial service, on the 29th October 1916, at Marlowes Baptist church along with seven other members of the congregation who had fallen in the Great War, a brief report of which appeared in the Hemel Gazette only three weeks after his death.

He is commemorated on the memorial plaque in the Marlowes Baptist Church and on the John Dickinson & Co Limited war memorial in Apsley.

George is Remembered with Honour in Lonsdale Cemetery, Authuille, Somme, France where he is interred in Grave X. B. 5.

He was 25 years old when he died.

George was entitled to the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.