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Quorn WW1 Roll of Honour - George Harry Bagley
Died 31st May 1917, aged 29, France
George Bagley was born on Nursery Lane in Quorn in late 1888. He was the only surviving son of his parents George and Mary Jane Bagley. The couple had had twelve children, but infant mortality was high in Victorian Quorn and five children died before reaching adulthood. By 1901 the family had moved to Wright’s cottages on Wood Lane. Although not large, these would have been clean and modern compared with many older properties in the village. The family lived at what is now number 18, just five doors away from George (senior’s) brother and his family with their eight children. Both men worked at Mountsorrel Quarry, but each had daughters working at Wright’s factory, which may be the reason they were able to rent these particular cottages. When George Harry Bagley left school, he too went to work at Wright’s, in the dye house.
George had originally joined the South Staffordshire Regiment, but had later been transferred to the Worcestershires. If a soldier was wounded and out of action for any time, they were often separated from their regiment, so when they recovered, rather than catching up with their old unit, they were usually transferred to another more conveniently placed regiment. This is almost certainly what happened to George. On 31st May 1917 George was killed in action near Arras in France. His body was never found and he is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.
As if this wasn’t enough, for his family the suffering was not yet over. George’s sister, Rosetta succumbed to the Spanish flu epidemic that hit Quorn at the end of the war, and she died in October 1918.
Below is a modern photograph of George’s home, 18 Wood Lane, in the middle with the brown door.
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