Name
George Lacey Longland
1888
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/11/1917
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
204600
Bedfordshire Regiment
1st/5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star, British War and Victory Medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
GAZA WAR CEMETERY
XXX. B. 12.
Israel and Palestine (including Gaza)
Headstone Inscription
None
UK & Other Memorials
Ashwell Village Memorial, St Mary’s Church Roll of Honour, Ashwell
Pre War
George Lacey Longland was born in 1888 in St Ives, Huntingdon, the son of George and Shirley Longland (nee Pammenter), and baptised on 7 April 1889 in Ashwell, Herts. His parents had married in 1883 in Worboys, nr St Ives and Huntingdon. His sister Elizabeth was born in 1885 but died in 1887.
His mother died at the end of 1888 and on the 1891 Census his father was listed as a a patient in the County Hospital in Huntingdon and described as a widower with the occupation as bricklayer. He died later the same year. George then went to live with his grandparents and was recorded in 1901 with grandparents, Amos and Jane Pammenter, in Workhouse Yard, Ashwell, where his grandfather was working as a sawyer. George was educated at Merchant Taylors School in Ashwell but left when he was 13 and became a carter and labourer on a farm.
His grandfather died in 1903 and his grandmother in 1906, and by 1911 he had joined the Bedfordshire Regiment and was listed as a Private with the 2nd Battalion stationed in Bermuda.
Wartime Service
He had enlisted in Royston and joined the Bedfordshire Regiment initially under reg. no. 8787 (the number suggesting he enlisted between 1906 and 1907). He was therefore a serving solder at the outbreak of war and was mobilised from their base in Mullingar in Ireland, landing in France on 16 August 1914.
The 1st/5th Battalion was posted to the Egyptian Theatre of War and George was killed at Sheikh Hasan near Gaza on 3 November 1917 and is buried in Gaza War Cemetery.
Additional Information
His aunt Alice Pammenter (sole legatee) received a war gratuity of £14 10s and pay owing of £12 12s 2d. No pension records have been found.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Adrian Pitts, Paul Johnson, www.ashwellmuseum.org.uk
