Person:George Scott (96)

From AWM Roll of Honour Record and CWGC: Name: SCOTT, GEORGE ROBINSON; Initials: G R; Nationality: Australian; Service Number: 4594; Rank: Private [Pte]; Unit: 39th Bn Australian Inf; Service: Army; Conflict: 1914-1918; Age: 23; Date of Death: 23/10/1917; Cause of Death: Died of sickness [Hemiplegia]; Memorial Panel: 131; Cemetery or Memorial Details: FRANCE 134 Longuenesse (St Omer) Souvenir Cemetery; Grave/Memorial Reference: IV. E. 65; Place Of Enlistment: Noorat, VIC; Native Place: Clunes VIC; Notes: SCOTT, Pte. George Robinson, 4594. 39th Bn. Australian Inf. Died of sickness 23rd Oct., 1917. Age 23. Son of Robert and Alice Elizabeth Scott, of Stronray, Buckley St., Essendon, Victoria, Australia. Native of Clunes, Victoria.

St. Omer was the General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force from October 1914 to March 1916. Lord Roberts died there in November 1914. The town was a considerable hospital centre with the 4th, 10th, 7th Canadian, 9th Canadian and New Zealand Stationary Hospitals, the 7th, 58th (Scottish) and 59th (Northern) General Hospitals, and the 17th, 18th and 1st and 2nd Australian Casualty Clearing Stations all stationed there at some time during the war. St. Omer suffered air raids in November 1917 and May 1918, with serious loss of life. The Commonwealth section of the cemetery contains 2,874 Commonwealth burials of the First World War (6 unidntified), with special memorials commemorating 23 men of the Chinese Labour Corps whose graves could not be exactly located.