Gordon Norman Muschamp was born in the village of Brotherlee in Weardale on 13th February 1888 and baptised a month later. His parents were local couple Isabella (nee Gibson) Muschamp and farmer George Sowerby Muschamp, and he was their sixth child. His siblings were John, George, Jane, Mary, Susan and Lizzie, and by the time Norman was in his teens his had another four, Sarah, Thomas, Edith and Edward. Still living with his parents in 1911 Norman was working as a carpenter, but following the death of his father in September 1912 he crossed the Atlantic on board the SS Mauretania, arriving in New York on 12th December with the intention of crossing the border into Canada.

George travelled west and at the time of his enlistment with the Canadian Expeditionary Force on 6th August 1915 he was farming in Saskatchewan. He became Private 104384 in “A” Company 68th (Regina) Battalion and the following year returned with them to England, arriving in Liverpool on 7th April. With the breakup of the Battalion Norman was posted to France with the 28th (Northwest) Battalion, joining them at Bedford House in mid July.

Wounded in the right leg on 15th September 1916 during the attack on Sugar Trench, north of the French town of Courcelette during the Somme campaign, he was invalided to hospital in Bristol and never fully recovered from his wounds. In February 1917, he was transferred to the 5th Battalion Canadian Railway Troops and returned to France. He served out the rest of the war with the CRT, returning to England in January 1919, and was demobilized in London on 3rd April 1919. Norman did not return to Canada with the CEF.

Returning to Weardale, In the spring of 1920 Norman married Susannah Fawcett, and their daughter Florence Isabel was born later that year. By 1939 Norman and Susannah were living in Market Harborough, Leicestershire where he was foreman joiner with the Public Works Department. At the time of his death, they were living in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Gordon Norman Muschamp died on 8th November 1972, and was cremated five days later.

Gordon Norman Muschamp is remembered in Westgate on W107.03 and probably W107.06