George Spurr was born in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire in the autumn of 1883 and baptised on the 20th December at St Paul’s church in the same year. He was born to George Spurr and Sarah Ann Shepherd who had nine children together. They were: William, George, Albert, John Thomas, Arthur, Alice Louisa, Annie and Walter. Arthur died when he was eight months old in 1891 and Annie died aged fourteen months in 1898. Another unknown child died in infancy. Two of George’s brothers also lost their lives in the Great War, Albert in October 1917 only three weeks before George and John, who was killed in an accident in July 1918.

The Spurr family lived on Cherry Bounce, Hemel Hempstead for over thirty years, before moving into 86 High Street just around the corner by the end of the war. George’s father George was a ‘Farm Labourer’ for most of his working life, but when young George started work it was as a ‘Tan Yard Labourer’ for Henry Balderson at Cornerhall in Hemel Hempstead. The tannery was situated where Brayley Honda car showroom stands today. By the time of the 1911 census he had changed occupations and was recorded as a ‘Carman’ for a corn merchant, much less noxious than the tannery work.

Records do not reveal when George enlisted but it is likely that he was called up under the Military Service Act in 1916. He went to Bedford to attest and enlisted with the Royal Fusiliers (City of London) Regiment. He was posted to the 36th Battalion Fusiliers, which was one of the labour battalions formed in May and June of 1916. In April 1917 the 33rd to the 37th Battalions Royal Fusiliers became the 99th to 108th Labour Companies of the Labour Corps and George transferred to 106th Company. These companies were created to try and satisfy the growing demand for labouring men, both skilled and unskilled, to undertake work of all sorts at home and overseas.

By November 1918 some 398,000 men were serving in the Labour Corps, 10% of the British Army’s strength and of these some 9,000 men were killed. Men of the Labour Corps were not fighting troops, but often they were working on or close to the front line and units were often deployed for work within range of the enemy guns, sometimes for lengthy periods. They were vital, because roads and railways had to be built and repaired, timber for everything from huts to duckboards had to be felled, sawed and fashioned, and salvage from discarded rifles to redundant boots, had to be recovered and wherever possible refurbished. The movement of ammunition, food, fodder and water for men and animals; fuel for motor vehicles and aircraft; sandbags, wire pickets, water pumps and 'elephant iron' that made the roofed-over sections of trenches, all had to get to the front line and additionally, bodies had to be exhumed and buried. All these things were carried out by the labour corps. From the location of George’s grave, it appears that he was in the vicinity when the Second Battle of Passchendaele was fought. 

Although it is not known exactly where he died, records state that he “Died of Wounds”.

His end came on Friday, 2nd November 1917.

George is Remembered with Honour in Dozinghem Military Cemetery, West Vlaanderen, Belgium, where he is interred in Grave XIV. D. 14.

He was 34 years old when he died.

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