Oliver George James Gravestock, known as George, was born in Hemel Hempstead in the late Summer of 1896 and baptised in St Mary’s church in the town on Sunday, 4th October in the same year. He was the oldest child of Edward George Gravestock and Millicent Vaughan who had ten children together. The children were: George Oliver James, Kathleen Amy, Edward George, Agnes Florence, William, John Alexander, Robert Charles, Sidney Alfred, Lilian Evelyn and Ellen Mary. William died aged eleven months in 1902.

George’s father Edward served with the Royal Army Service Corps enlisting at the age of forty-three in 1915 and going to France. He suffered accidental burns to his face and hands when putting out a fire but survived the conflict and was finally demobilised in February 1918.

The Gravestock family lived in Piccott’s End, Hertfordshire when George was born and where his father worked as a ‘Bricklayer’. Records do not reveal how George was employed but we do know that on the outbreak of war he was one of the early recruits from the young men of Hemel Hempstead.

He attested at Marlowes Recruiting Office at the start of September 1914 and enlisted with the Bedfordshire Regiment. He was posted to the newly formed 6th battalion and went to Aldershot to train where the Battalion was attached to the 9th (Scottish) Division. When the 37th Division was formed in March 1915, the Battalion was moved to join it at Andover and trained on Salisbury Plain, where it was transferred into the 112th Brigade. When his training was complete George went to France, disembarking at Le Havre on the 24th August and joining his comrades shortly afterwards at Orville north of Amiens.

The 6th Battalion did not see significant action until the 15th July 1916 when it fought at the Battle of Bazentin Ridge an early engagement in the Somme offensive. This action also resulted in the first significant casualties for the Battalion with over 330 men Killed, Wounded or Missing, but George was fortunate and came through unscathed.

Within a month he was in action again this time in the Battle of Pozières where the Battalion experienced very heavy shelling and machine gun fire from the enemy, but George’s luck still held, and he survived the assault. There followed two months of relative calm until the final battle of the Somme campaign at Ancre in early November, where again George’s good fortune held, and he and his comrades overwintered whilst the Battalion was reinforced in preparation for the spring campaign at Arras.

This began with the First Battle of the Scarpe in early April and was followed by the Second Battle of the Scarpe on the 23rd April 1917. It was at this point that George’s luck finally ran out and at some point, between the 23rd of April and the Battle of Arleux on the 28th and 29th George was killed. Arleux was particularly costly for the 6th Bedfordshires and the War Diary recorded that “Only 58 men actually came out of the attack”.

George was officially recorded as ‘Killed in Action’ on Saturday, 29th April 1917 having fought in six major actions in two short years and before he reached the age of 21.

He was commemorated on the memorial plaques in two Hemel Hempstead churches; St Mary’s where he had been baptised and worshipped; and St Paul’s where his mother and father had married.

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

He was only 20 years old when he died.

George was entitled to the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.