George Herbert Sleightholme

Enlisting in Georgetown, George indicated that he was living with his brother Arthur on Queen St. His mother Julia also appears to have been living in Georgetown; however his estate was bequeathed to his father, noted as living in Cambridgeshire. George reported that he hailed from Lincolnshire, England and had been born in 1880.

George was just shy of 36 years of age at enlistment…older than the average 21 years of most soldiers. His medical report revealed that his “teeth need attention” and he was admitted to hospital for six days in March 1917 for tonsilitis. In April 1918 he arrived in France and was transferred the 52^nd Cnd Bn. On May 11, 1918, he was awarded a Good Conduct Badge and three months later he was dead. Killed in action on August 14, 1918.

His gravestone was originally marked “A Soldier of the Great War, A Canadian Regiment, Known Unto God” indicating that they did not initially know whose body had been buried, this was later amended upon exhumation, with his name. Goerge is now buried in Roye New British Cemetery, Somme, France.

George is memorialized on the Georgetown Cenotaph Remembrance Park and commemorated on a memorial stain glass window at St. George’s Anglican Church Georgetown.

Truly a Canadian Hero. His story lives on.

*Information taken from Canadiangreatwarproject.ca and Ancestry.ca

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