George Lattimore lay wounded on the battlefield for eleven hours before he could be evacuated to safety. George was one of 14 men from Dean Street in Oakham to die in the First World War. A former soldier who had fought in South Africa, he was born in Oakham on 4 March 1881, the younger son of William and Mary Lattimore. His father, a former Grenadier Guardsman, worked as a bricklayer but by the time George was ten his parents were running the Royal Oak pub in Oakham High Street. George was working as a labourer when he joined the army in 1899, serving with the Royal Scots in the Second Boer War. He was discharged from the army in December 1902 when he returned to Oakham and found work as a bricklayer. He married in 1907 and lived with his wife Sarah Jane at 2, Dean Street, Oakham. The couple already had one daughter, Agnes, when the First World War broke. Sarah was six months pregnant with their second child, Sybil, when George attested at Loughborough and rejoined his old regiment on 1 October 1914 as a Private in the 3rd Battalion. His service record shows he was docked ten days pay in June after being spotted drunk by a Sergeant and a Corporal in Preston Road, Weymouth at 8.10pm. He went to France on 4 July 1915 and was posted to the 13th Battalion which consisted of Kitchener volunteers. Presumably the battalion needed the experience of someone like George who had seen action before. The Royal Scots took part in the Battle of Loos, fighting around the strategically important Hill 70. George was wounded on 26 September and lay injured in no man's land for eleven hours before help arrived. On 30 September he was admitted to No. 11 General Hospital in Boulogne based at the Imperial Hotel with bullet wounds to his chest, back and hip. His wife was notified he was dangerously ill and she travelled out to visit him in hospital. He promised her he would try to come home but he died of his injuries on 29 October 1915, aged 36. George is buried in Bolougne Eastern Cemetery, grave VIII.C.53, and is remembered on Oakham's war memorial. He is also on Loughborough's Roll of Honour, the town where he enlisted and perhaps where he was working at the time.

Thanks to descendant Neil Webster for additional information, the photograph of George (above) and the photograph of the dedication inside a copy of Rutland and the Great War presented to George's widow.

In Rutland and the Great War, George Phillips writes that George Lattimore was wounded at a place called Vencrest. But we are unable to find such a place on the map and assume it to be a mistranslation of a place name in the Loos area.