Rank: Lieutenant

Regiment: Reserve Cavalry Regiment, 5th

Secondary Regiment: attd. 9th Bn. West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales's Own)

Awards: Military Cross

Died: 28th September 1918

Age: 34 years old.

Born in Stoke Newington, London on the 18th June 1884, George was the son of Mathew Jarvis and Eliza Jarvis (née Emms) of 'Cedars', Twyford, Berkshire. George had five older siblings, Mathew, Alfred, Edith, Martha and Elisa and a younger sister Elizabeth. Before 1901 the family lived at 44, Cazenove Road, Hackney, London where they employed a housemaid and a cook. Their father was a Wholesale Upholsterer and Cabinet Maker. He died on the 4th August 1901.

George worked in London as a solicitor with his older brother Mathew. On the 2nd December 1901 he joined the Honourable Artillery Company (Territorial Regiment). On the outbreak of war he was mobilised. From 1914 to 1915 he served in England in the 2nd Brigade Royal Horse Artillery holding the rank of Farrier-Sergeant.

On the 8th April 1915 George was sent to Egypt with the XV Brigade Royal Horse Artillery. On the 25th April the Brigade landed at Cape Helles, Gallipoli where George saw action in many battles.

George left Gallipoli at the beginning of January 1916 and returned to England to where he attended the Cavalry School at Netheravon in Wiltshire. Here, he passed out first in his class. On the 28th November 1916, he was granted a commission as a Second Lieutenant with the 19th Hussars in the 9th Cavalry Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division.

George married Ellen Kearsey. The marriage was registered in Maidenhead in the first quarter of 1917.

Attached to the 9th (Yorkshire Hussars) Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, George was sent to the Western Front. On 27 September 1918 his Battalion prepared for the Battle of the Canal du Nord. At 11:37am the Battalion advanced to make the canal crossing. Progress was slow in reaching the crossing point due to an enemy machine gun nest near the crossing. At 1:20pm the Battalion completed the crossing and moved to the next assembly point. The next phase of the attack was postponed until 3:00pm; this attack progressed with few casualties.

The following morning on the 28th September George was returning from delivering munitions when an enemy aircraft dropped a bomb on their group. Two drivers, two mules and a horse were killed. George, along with two other soldiers, was severely wounded.

George was admitted to the No. 1 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, reportedly with wounds to his right arm and a fracture of his right thigh. He died later that day and was buried the following day in Duisans British Military Cemetery, in a service led by a Canadian Chaplain, the Reverend W. Fisher.

In King George V's 1919 New Year Honours list, George was awarded a posthumous Military Cross. This was announced in the London Gazette on the 1st January 1919. The original citation read:

 'This Officer has been Transport Officer of the 9th Battalion since February to September 1918, and the transport of the Battalion has never been in so efficient a state. He makes a point of going personally with ammunition or rations when the road is rendered dangerous by shelling or machine-gun fire, and on many occasions has by his energy and total disregard of personal danger ensured the safe delivery of whatever was being carried, and set a fine example to his men.'

George's medals consisting of his Military Cross, 1914-1915 Star, British War & Victory medal and a Territorial Efficiency Medal were sold at auction for £1,700 in January 2021.

George is commemorated on the War Memorial in Twyford, Berkshire.

 (Sources: CWGC, Ancestry, Find My Past, Twyford War Memorial. In Memory of the Fallen By Paul Aplin, Newspaper Archives, London Gazette, Noonans of Mayfair, Battalion War Diary)

(Bio: Woose)