Private George Henry Steer
| Date of Birth | c.1891 |
|---|---|
| Age at Death | 27 |
| Date of Death | 26 September 1915 |
| Service Number | G/3303 |
| Military Service | Queen's Own Regiment |
| Merton Address | |
| Local Memorial |
Additional Information
George Henry Steer was born in Balham Surrey c 1891. In 1901, at the age of 10, he was living in Balham New Road with his parents, Henry George Steer - a house painter - and his wife Elizabeth. He had a younger sister, Dorothy, aged 8. By 1911, when George was 21, the family had moved to 24 Cowper Road, Wimbledon and he was working as a plumber’s mate. Dorothy was working as a daily domestic servant and he now had two more sisters and two brothers.
Early in the war George enlisted in Merton, Surrey into the 8th Service Battalion of the Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment. His service number was G/3303. The 8th was a battalion of Kitchener’s New Army. On August 7th 1914, just 3 days after the outbreak of war, Lord Kitchener – then the Secretary for War - had appealed for 100,000 volunteers aged between 19 and 30 to reinforce the regular Army. Within eight weeks nearly 750,000 men had enlisted.
George, now Private Steer, and other New Army recruits - frequently known as Kitcher’s Mob - were all volunteers with no previous training or experience. Purpose-built training camps for the new recruits were erected and they were given basic physical fitness training as well as marching and drills. There was no set programme for this so each squad had a very different training experience.
The 8th battalion, which was formed on 14th September 1914, served throughout the war on the Western Front, having landed in France on 30th August 1915. On 25 September 1915 the Allies launched a new joint attack on the Western Front and the New Armies first saw action in the Battle of Loos, which commenced on 25th September. The casualties were appalling, with the 18th battalion losing 550 men and all but one of its officers. Private Steer was pronounced missing, presumed dead, on 26th September.
Private Steer is one of those commemorated on panels 95 to 97 of the Loos Memorial in the Pas-de -Calais to the more than 20,000 men with no known known grave who fell from the first day of the Battle of Loos to the end of the war.
He is also remembered on the memorial tablet on the south wall of the United Apostolic Church (formerly St. Peter’s Church) in Wimbledon.