Private George Blackmore


Service Army Service No. 133841
Rank Private
Regiment:Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), 32nd Battalion
Date of Birth: 1899
Born Clyst St Lawrence
Date of Death: 04/10/1918
Memorial: Cofton Memorial Inscription George Blackmore, Machine Gun Corps, Oct 4th, 1918

Service History

It is not known when George Blackmore enlisted and whether this was because he was conscripted. By this stage of the war men were being drafted even though they appeared to be in essential occupations at home. We have only the evidence of press reports that “ Private George Blackmore, Machine Gun Corps, son of Mr and Mrs Blackmore, of Starcross, and formerly of Clyst St Lawrence, was killed by a shell in France at the age of 18. He went across only about a month ago.”

Association with Dawlish

George Blackmore’s family come from the area north of Honiton in the Blackdown Hills.

His great grandfather, also George (1803-1870), was born in Clayhydon and married to Sarah (nee Pike)(1803-1879), born in Broadhembury. He worked the land as a labourer. Their youngest son was also George (1848-). Sarah was a widow by the time of the 1871 census and she is described as a pauper, as was her eldest daughter, also Sarah (1832-1887), while her son George, 23, was a labourer and they had living with them Sydney Blackmore, 4, a grand child.

Sidney Blackmore married Isabella Kellow (1869-1930) in 1888 and they went to live at Clyst St Lawrence, another small agricultural community near Clyst Hydon, and by 1891 had their first child, Sidney James Blackmore in 1890. George was their second son, born in 1899, and they went on to have eight children who survived by the 1911 census.

By 1901 the family had grown and were living at Eveleigh’s Cottage, Clyst St Lawrence with their children.

At some point after this, Sidney and Isabella moved to Shutterton Cottages, nr Cofton, and George took up work with Mrs Dodge, a market gardener at Cofton. It seems quite likely that this was Mrs Ann Dodge as Walter, her husband, had died in 1916. They were the parents of Arthur George Dodge (q.v.).

Devon Roll of Honour
Additional Information Commonwealth War Graves Site


Next of Kin: Father, Sidney Blackmore
Last Known Address: Clyst St Lawrence, nr Whimple.


George Blackmore in uniform

Cofton St Mary War Memorial panel, 1918

Vis-en-Artois Memorial, courtesy CWGC website

Free Births, marriages, Deaths refs

refs via subscription websites:

Census data

UK, Soldiers who died in the Great War

Medal Rolls index cards

Family trees (ancestry.com) Kellow and Dunn

UK, Register of Soldiers’ Effects