Private George Lewis Kilbourne
60078 16th Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regiment)
George was born in 1878 at Westwood, Notts, son of Robert Henry Kilbourne, a mining engine driver/stoker from Sawley and Emily (nee Plackett), a lace runner from Buxton, Derbyshire. In 1881 the family was living at New Westwood but by 1891 they had moved to Old Westwood (Palmerston Street). George had an elder brother named Robert Henry and elder sister Amelia May Kilbourne.
In 1882, when George was aged three, his mother Emily died and in 1884 his father married Caroline Brown. By the time George was nineteen, his father Robert had also died so, in 1901, George was living with his brother Robert and sister-in-law Ann at 17, Market Street, Ironville. George’s occupation was given as steel smelter. In 1909 George married Sarah Lowe and in 1911 they are living at Westwood and George is a brickmaker. The census records that they have been married for 2 years, and that Sarah has had one child that is alive, but there is no child with them on the night of the census. In 1914 the birth of a son Frank Kilbourne is recorded on the bmd records. (Frank went on to marry Nora Isabella Clarke at St. Mary’s Westwood in 1940.)
George was a recipient of the British War and Victory Medals indicating that he was possibly a conscript, no theatre of war is mentioned on his Medal Rolls Index Card. He is listed on the Absent Voters Roll 1918/1919 as absent from Palmerston Street, Westwood.
George died in 1941, aged 63 and his wife Sarah died aged only 47 in 1929. They are both buried at St. Mary’s, Westwood.