George Ivory was born in Queensland, Australia on Wednesday, 27th January 1897 just over a year after his parents George Ivory and Lucy Jane (nee. Cyster) had arrived from England. George and Lucy already had two children when they took the decision to emigrate and little George joined his brothers Robert and James. The three boys were soon followed by a little sister Lucy at the end of 1898 but sadly only five months later their mother Lucy died aged only thirty-six. Following Lucy’s demise their father George took the decision to return to England with his young family and by 1903 they had settled on Pullar Road in Boxmoor.

George Snr. was a Hairdresser by trade and from Great Gaddesden where he had met and married Lucy in 1888. On returning to Hemel Hempstead young George entered Boxmoor JMI School on 8th February 1904 and of the twenty boys who joined him that day, six were to fall during the coming conflict. His brother James was apprenticed to a local butcher but he would go on to have a successful career as a colonial civil servant working for the Nigerian railways based in West Africa before retiring to Hemel Hempstead in the 1950’s. Young George left Boxmoor JMI on 21st December 1910 when he was thirteen to start work as a Messenger with the Post Office in Boxmoor. A year later he and James where ‘Boarders’ with Joseph and Isabella Bishop, near neighbours on Pullar Road.

On the outbreak of War George was too young at seventeen to enlist and had to wait until his next birthday in January 1915 before he could join the Colours. It appears that he may have waited until he was eligible to go overseas aged nineteen, joining the Hertfordshire Regiment in early 1916, as his War Gratuity indicates nine months military service. This would suggest that he attested in February, and assuming six months of basic training, meant he went to France in August 1916. When he did go overseas he was posted to 6th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment and likely joined his unit at Guestraville in France at the end of August or start of September. By the end of September the Battalion was in action around Thiepval for about six days before being relieved. George was back in the trenches towards the end of October and saw enemy action at Tara Hill near the notorious Mouquet Farm and it was here that he was fatally wounded and his death officially reported on 1st November 1916. He had been at the Front for less than three months when he fell.

He is commemorated on the Wr Memorial Plaque in St. John’s church in Boxmoor as well as on the village War Memorial in Markyate where his father and future step-mother Lilla Neale where living.

George is Remembered with Honour on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France, Pier and Face 11 D.

He was 20 years old when he died.

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