George Albert Timson was born in Leverstock Green, Hertfordshire on Wednesday, 15th June 1887 and baptised two months later on Sunday, 28th August in Holy Trinity Church in the village. He was the fourth child born to George Timson and Elizabeth Stratton the parents of seven children who were: Thomas, Ellen, Ethel Jane, George, Frank and Mabel. Frank died in 1895 aged six months and George and Elizabeth lost one other child whose name is unknown.

George’s father George was the landlord of the Red Lion pub in Leverstock Green which was almost the last house on the road out of the village towards St Albans. It stood near the Vicarage on the corner of Pancake Lane in the village and George senior had been Landlord since around 1880. The pub licence stayed in the family for over fifty years when, following his death in 1908, George’s wife Elizabeth took on the pub before her son Frank became landlord, a position he still held in 1930.

George attended the village school in Leverstock Green from the age of five and when his education was complete he left to start work as an ‘Agricultural Labourer’. He continued in this job until finding work in Nash Mills with John Dickinson & Co. Limited around 1912 and he stayed with the firm until he joined the Army for overseas service.

George enlisted under the ‘Derby Scheme’ attesting in late 1915 before being called up in the following March to begin his basic training. He joined the Bedfordshire regiment and was initially posted to Felixstowe to train with the 4th Battalion before being sent to France towards the end of 1916 as a draft to the 6th Battalion Bedfordshires around mid-December.

He saw his initial action in the First Battle of the Scarpe on 9th April 1917, the opening phase of the Arras Offensive, and fourteen days later he fought in the Second Battle of the Scarpe. This was a hard-fought action and although objectives were achieved successfully, the Battalion suffered heavy shelling and German counter-attacks as the Bedfordshires consolidated the gains. Over 260 men were killed, wounded or missing at the end of the first day and George was one of those posted ‘Missing’.

He was subsequently confirmed ‘Killed in Action’ in the initial assault on Monday, 23rd April 1917. He was the fifth Hemel Hempstead soldier to die on this day in the Second Battle of the Scarpe.

George was commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co Limited war memorial in Apsley and the Leverstock Green memorial in the village.

George is Remembered with Honour on the Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France on Bay 5.

He was 29 years old when he died.

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