Glenn King

THEY STOOD ON GUARD NOVEMBER 11, 1917 Two Sons Lost to War, a Mother Searching for Her Third In Birmingham, England, a mother had already received the news every parent dreaded. Two of her sons had been killed in the First World War. Now she was desperately trying to find her eldest surviving son in Canada. One of the sons she had lost was Lance Corporal George Knight, a Canadian soldier killed at Passchendaele on November 11, 1917. Born in Birmingham on January 6, 1890, George had made his way to Canada before the war. He was living on Bathurst Street in London, Ontario, before enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force on January 12, 1915. He served with the 18th Battalion, Canadian Infantry, part of the Western Ontario Regiment. By November 1917, George was fighting at Passchendaele, where Canadian troops endured some of the most appalling conditions of the war. On November 11, an exploding artillery shell killed the 27-year-old lance corporal. His official casualty record states that he died from the concussion of the blast. His brother James had also been killed during the war. Back in Birmingham, their grieving mother wrote to Mrs. M. Gibson, a woman in London, Ontario, with whom George had lived before enlisting. She was searching for news of her eldest son, Jack, who had last been known to be working in the city. Mrs. Gibson found him employed as a foreman at the Ontario Spring Bed and Mattress Company’s plant and arranged to send word to his mother. The story appeared in a Canadian newspaper beneath the heartbreaking headline, “Lonely Woman Finds Brother of Two Dead Heroes in City.” For a mother who had already lost two sons, the discovery that another was alive must have brought some measure of comfort. George Knight’s remains were never identified. His name is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium. He died exactly one year before the Armistice brought the fighting to an end. Two brothers lost. A mother left to mourn. A family forever changed by war. Lest We Forget. #TheyStoodOnGuard #LestWeForget #RemembranceDay #WWI