Ploegsteert Memorial, Hainaut, Belgium
George Victor Worrall Private 7649 - 1st Battalion North Stafford Regiment Died of wounds on Sunday 31st October 1914 No known grave but is remembered on the Ploegsteert Memorial, Hainaut, Belgium Born   in   Gnosall   in   1887.   He   was   the   son   of   blacksmith   John   Worrall   from   St   George’s   near Lilleshall,   aged   about   26.   (John   Worrall’s   sisters   and   mother   had   been   born   in   Gnosall   the   family   lived   in   Coton   in   the   1870s   and   1880s.)   John’s   wife,   (George’s   mother),   Mary Jane nee Johnson (31) was also Gnosall-born. John and Mary had married in St. Lawrence Church on 28 th  December 1886 George was baptised at St Lawrence Church, Gnosall, on 9 th  October1887 The   1891   census   shows   the   family   living   in   Gnosall   (probably   in   Wharf   Road)   about halfway   between   the   Fountain   Inn   &   Coton   Lodge.   George’s   father   was   working   as   a blacksmith.   There   were   now   a   younger   brother,   Cyril,   born1889,   and   a   younger   sister,   Ida Lilian (1891). By 1901 the family had moved to Kettering, Northants. George, aged 14, was now working as an errand boy, and his father was still a blacksmith. It   was   in   Kettering   that   George   enlisted   in   the   1 st    North   Staffordshire   Regiment   as   Private 7649   and   he   entered   the   theatre   of   war   on   the   10    th    September   1914   when   his   regiment went   to   France.   He   was   later   awarded   the   “Mons   Star”   (1914   star),   Clasp   2/2951,   and   the Victory and British medals (the three medals being known as “Pip Squeak and Wilfred”). His span of duty lasted only 51 days and he died of wounds received during the course of day-to-day trench warfare on 31 st  October 1914. George Victor Worrall has no known   grave,   but   is remembered on Panel 8 of the Ploegsteert Memorial south of Ypres in Belgium. His record states “Son of Mary Worrall,   of   53,   Edmund   St., Kettering,   Northants,   and   the late John Worrall.” The Birmingham Daily Post of 13 th   January 1915 carried the notice: DIED OF WOUNDS … WORRALL, 7649, Pte. G., North Staffordshire Regt.”