George Henry Moncrieffe Beaty (1887-1951)
Stockton man was conscripted into the Canadian Army
Father George Henry Shaw Beaty worked for the National Provincial Bank and at the time of his son George’s birth was an accountant at the branch in Stockton High Street. George senior had married his Worcester born wife Adelaide Margaret Hipkiss in West Bromwich in 1980. They had moved to Stockton in about 1884 and all but the two youngest of their children were born there. Named in full George Henry Moncrieffe Beaty, young George was their third child of seven and their first son. He was born on 29 April 1887. The 1901 census lists him as a boarder at a school in Sandwich, Kent, which was not far from Temple Ewall, Kent where the family had moved to on his father’s appointment as a bank manager.
In June 1905 young George sailed for Canada making for Winnipeg, Manitoba and a life as a farmer, according to the ship’s manifest. The next that is known is that, by 1917, George was working on a tree farm in Michigan, USA and had registered for the US Army draft as an alien. 1918 saw him back in Canada, living and working on a farm in Vannes, Manitoba and on 3 April 1918 he married American Bertha Johnson in Winnipeg.
In the spring of 1918, the Canadian Government removed the exemption for farmers from the Military Service Act which was a very unpopular move. In June 1918, having received his conscription letter, George reported for service at Winnipeg and became private 3347652 attached to 1st Depot Battalion, Manitoba Regiment. Strangely for a farmer, he was classified category B3, fit only for sedentary work, and was sent on conditional leave soon after reporting for duty at Minto Barracks. He was not required to report back for duty and his discharge papers were sent in the mail in January 1919.
The 1920 Canadian census shows George and Bertha living on a farm in Eriksdale, Manitoba with their two year old son, Earl Montague, shortly to be joined by younger son, Gordon. George had retired from the farm by 1949 when he and Bertha were living in St Elmo Road, Winnipeg and he was working as a checker. George Henry Moncrieffe Beaty died on 27 December 1951 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in the same plot as Bertha who died in 1977.
Civil Parish: Stockton on Tees
Birth date: 29-Apr-1887
Death date: 27-Dec-1951
Armed force/civilian: Army
Residence: 123 High Street, Stockton-on-Tees (1891 census)
Ivy Bank, Temple Ewall, Kent (1901 census)
Oakland, Missouri, USA (US draft WW1 papers, 1917)
Vannes, Manitoba, Canada (Canadian service record, 1918)
Eriksdale, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (marriage report, Winnipeg Tribune 1 April 1918)
25 St Elmo Road, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (1951 obituary)
Employment: Farmer (service record)
Family: Parents: George Henry Shaw Beaty, Adelaide Margaret Beaty nee Hipkiss
Siblings: Courtney Shaw Beaty, Marguerite Shaw Beaty, Frederick Ainsworth Beaty, William Alfred Lewis Beaty, May Beaty, John Scott Beaty
Spouse: Bertha Beaty nee Johnson
Children: Earl Montague Beaty, Gordon Beaty
Military service:
3347652
Private
1st Depot Battalion, Manitoba Regiment, Canadian Expeditionary Force
Gender: Male
Contributed by Jean Longstaff, Durham | Jim Busby, Canada