George Betts
Lance Corporal 8999 - 2nd Bn South Staffordshire Regiment
Killed in action on Tuesday 27th October 1914
Commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
George Betts, christened 10
th
September 1893 in Gnosall, was one of ten children born to
farm worker Thomas and Mary Betts: Samuel (born in Levedale near Bradley), Thomas,
Albert, Henry, Sarah Ann, John, Emily, Ellen, George and Millie (who was born and died in
the summer of 1895).
George’s father was Thomas Betts from Bradley and mother Mary (nee Cooper) was from
Broadhill. They married in 1876.
The family had moved to the High Street in
Gnosall around 1878-9. Their neighbours on
1881 census indicate they lived at the top part of
the High Street shown here on the 1880 map.
One of George’s older brothers (Thomas jnr.)
joined the army as early as 1900, and had
postings to South Africa (Boer War) and
Mauritius before re-joining (the Northumberland
Fusiliers) for WWI. During the early period of his
first engagement the family still lived on High
Street, although according to Thomas junior’s
army papers, in 1909 their address was then
Bank Top. However, by 1911 they had moved to
Whittington near Lichfield. Thomas junior was
promoted to Lance Corporal but at his own later
request, reverted to private. He died in Stamford
Infirmary, Leicester as an Army Pensioner on the
7
th
June 1950.
Lance Corporal 8999 George Betts joined the
South Staffordshire Regiment, 2
nd
Battalion, and arrived in Belgium on the 12
th
August
1914. He was killed in action at Ypres on the 27
th
October 1914, just over a month after his
twenty-first birthday.
Commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium. Panel 35 and 37.
The Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ypres, Belgium
Dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient
of World War I and whose graves are unknown.
The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who
passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates casualties from the
forces of Australia, Canada, India, South Africa and United Kingdom who died in the
Salient.
Each night at 8 pm the traffic is stopped at the Menin Gate while members of the local Fire
Brigade sound the Last Post in the roadway under the Memorial's arches.