Sgt 23107 George McKibbin

• Age: 24
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 30th March 1918
• Commemorated at: Pozieres Memorial
  Panel Ref: P21-23

George McKibbin born in Everton in the summer of 1894, the youngest son of Henry (Harry) McKibbin and his wife Elizabeth (née Copplestone). His father, born in Liverpool, and his mother in Devon, married in Liverpool in 1871 at Our Lady & St. Nicholas & St. Anne's Church, Liverpool and had nine children. George had older siblings Richard, Elizabeth, Henry, Agnes, Sarah, Maria, and May, and a younger sister Mary. He was baptised on 9th July 1894 in St. Mary’s, Kirkdale.

In 1901 his parents are living at 207 Breckfield Road North, Everton, with eight children at home. His father is a stone mason, George is 6.

His sister Agnes had married in 1903 and died at age 24 in 1906.

In 1911 her son, Benjamin Lloyd, 7, is living with his grandparents, still at 207 Breckfield Road North. George’s father is 61, a mason, his mother is 58, Sarah, 26, is a packer of drugs for a drysalter’s, George is 16, a mason’s improver, and Mary, 14, is a science(?) room maid for the municipal authority.

George enlisted in Liverpool on 10th November 1914 joining the 20th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 23107. He gave his age as 20 years and 5 months, and his occupation as casemaker. He is described as being 5’ 8 and a quarter inches tall, weighing 128 lbs, with a fresh complexion, grey eyes and dark brown hair. He gives his father as next of kin. 

Formed in November 1914 the 20^th Battalion were originally billeted at Tournament Hall, Knotty Ash before on 29^th January 1915 they moved to the hutted accommodation purposely built at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 20th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. He arrived in France on 07^th November 1915.

George's service record has survived:

His disciplinary record shows that while at Grantham, on 29/8/1915, he was absent from midnight until 7 a.m., 4 days confined to barracks

On 04/10/1915 at Larkhill, absent for three days, 14 days C.B.

France

30/7/1916 appointed L/Cpl

03/01/1917 to Div. school

15/01/1917 rejoined unit

23/3/1917 appointed paid L/Sgt

27/03/1917 granted leave to U.K.

05/4/1917 rejoined from leave

14/4/1917 appointed Acting Sgt

16/6/1917 confirmed in rank Sgt

On 01st August 1917, during the Battle of Third Ypres, George suffered a wound to the left arm, sent to 86 Field Ambulance then to No.17 Casualty Clearing Station, and to 20th General Hospital at Camiers. He rejoined his unit in the field on 25th August 1917.

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown originally as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March.

George has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.

George earned his three medals.

His mother Elizabeth received George’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £22-10s, and a  pension of 7/- a week from December 1918.

In 1919 the Army requested information on George’s living relatives.  His parents were still living at 207 Breckfield Road with Sarah, 34, May, 29, and Mary (Polly), 23.  His other siblings were living in the Liverpool area.

His mother died in 1921, aged 68.

In 1924, on 19th May, his father wrote to Infantry Records wishing to know George’s date of death.  The response informed him that “your late son was presumed to have died on or since 22 March 1918”.

His father died in 1926, aged 74, living at the home of his daughter Mary, now Moore, 7 Dyke Street. Both his parents were buried in public graves.

Sadly, George has not been found on any memorial

We currently have no further information on George McKibbin. If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.