John Taylor and Ann Norman have submitted the following:
George Ritson was born in Wrekenton in about 1888, the son of William and Jane Ann Ritson. His father was employed as a coal hewer. Sadly his mother died when he was about twelve and his father was a left as a widower with seven children from late teens to about two years old. In 1901 the family were living at 5 Ship Lane and George had joined his father and elder brother in employment at a colliery, working underground as a coal driver at the age of thirteen. In the 1911 census William was living at Armstrongs Buildings, Eighton Banks with three daughters and a granddaughter. George is recorded as boarding with John and Sarah Elizabeth Moore at 29 Hyde Terrace, Gosforth, while employed as a coal hewer, as is another boarder, John Ritson, born in Windy Nook in about 1874 and possibly a cousin.
George enlisted as a Private with the Durham Light Infantry, regimental number 22888, at Seaham Harbour, and it is with this regiment that he is remembered on the memorial in St. Thomas Church. However he later transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, regimental number 148578. He was killed in action on the Western Front on 27th September 1918. He is buried in plot: VII. B. 7 at the Flesquieres Hill British Cemetery, Flesquieres, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France.
