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George Alfred Winpenny was born on the 24th October 1893 in Pennsylvania, USA, the son of Middlestown born coal miner Thomas Winpenny and his wife Annie Maria (nee Heywood) who married in 1881 in the Dewsbury district. Thomas Winpennmy and his wife Annie with daughter Nellie arrived in the USA on the SS Alaska on the 15th August 1887 where Thomas worked in the coal mines in the Pittsburgh area.
Thomas and Annie Winpenny had three more children in the USA, including George, before returning to Ossett in 1897. The Winpenny family lived on South Parade Road, Ossett and, by 1911, aged 18 years, George was living with her parents at 50, Junction Lane, Ossett and working as a coal trammer underground. He was one of nine children, but sadly four of those children had died before April 1911.
In 1918, Private George Alfred Winpenny was awared thre Military Medal after four years of service in 2nd/4th KOYLI. The “Ossett Observer” had this article in 1919:
“Presentation of Military Medal to Ossett Man – Lance Corporal George Alfred Winpenny (26), stretcher bearer, of the 2nd/4th K.O.Y.L.I., an Ossett soldier, has been presented at Pontefract with the Military Medal, awarded to him for bravery on the battlefield. He has served four years with the battalion during the war, and spent much time in France, wher on one occasion he was badly wounded in several parts of the body with splinters from a “whizz bang”. Note: whizz band was a small-calibre World War One shell that, when discharged, travelled at such a high velocity that the sound of its flight was heard only an instant, if at all, before the sound of its explosion.
At the time he joined the army, he resided at Junction Lane, Ossett Common, having worked for several years at the Old Roundwood Colliery, where, now he has been demobilised, he has resumed his employent though living at Westgate Common, Wakefield. He is also a playing member of Ossett Common Wesleyan Football Club”.
Shortly after being demobbed on the 7th January 1919, George Winpenny married Norwich born Florence Victoria Coleman in Wakefield and later circa 1924, thecouple moved to live at 49, North Marine Road, Scarborough where George worked as a general labourer. The couple had at least six children. The eldest two, George Henry (born 1920) and Thomas (born 1921) were born in Wakefield and the rest in Scarborough.
George Alfred Winpenny died at Clifton Mental Hospital, York on the 30th October 1966 aged 73 years and his wife Florence died three years earlier in 1963 in Scarborough. Probate of George’s will was granted to his son George Henry Winpenny, a wireless officer, in the sum of £4,029.
He was awarded the Victory Medal and British War Medal in addition to the Military Medal.
References:
1. “Ossett Observer” July 1919
