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“If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously, Of those who as heroes fought And died to keep you free”
Set up by the Black Country Society. Our aim is to highlight local men who died in the Great War and how they have been commemorated on war memorials. Its scope covers the whole of the present Dudley Municipal Borough and therefore includes the places which have come within its bounds since 1914.
There are over fifty memorials and the number of names exceeds three thousand. Research on the names has been extensive but inevitably errors and omissions occur. We would like to hear about them concentrated on life and work before 1914, involvement in military campaigns and where each man is buried or commemorated.
George Payton was the son of Samuel and Sarah Payton of 30 The Dock, Wordsley. He enlisted in the South Staffordshire Territorials but was transferred to the Lincolns. He served in the 10th Battalion in the 34th Division which spent the first part of 1917 in the Spring battles around Arras. Attacking the well fortified Hindenburg Line was difficult and the attempts to take Roeux and Hargicourt were expensive in casualties. In late September they moved to the Third Battle of Ypres and took part in the major battle of Poelcapelle starting on the 9th October. The weather was appalling and conditions were described as ‘mud and filth up to the neck’. The Lincolns were not in the first attack but there was much long range shelling from the enemy and Private George Payton was killed on this day. He was 23 years of age and is buried in Cement House Cemetery (V D 3) near Boesinghe and commemorated on the Wordsley Memorial.
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High Street, Wordsley, West Midlands, DY8 5RU
