b. ? 1882 Oxhill, Durham. d. ? 1949 Coventry, Warwickshire.
DATE OF EM ACTION: 29/09/1930 Hedley Pit, South Moor, County Durham.
George was one of nine children born to Joseph and Sarah Nancollas in Oxhill, Durham in 1882. His father was a career miner, and was keen for his sons to follow him into the same profession. By the time of the 1901 Census, when George was 19, both he and his older brother Robert, were already working at the same pit as their father. In 1907, he married Ethel Dodd in Lanchester, Durham. On the outbreak of World War I, George could have decided to remain down the mines in a reserved occupation, but chose to enlist with the Durham Light Infantry. He served on the Western Front and was promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He was discharged on 10th January 1919. Despite being discharged with a disability, George returned to the mines. He was awarded the Edward Medal for his part in the rescue of Frederick Beaumont in September 1930 at the Hedley Pit in South Moor. Little is known about his later life and it is believed he possibly died in 1949 in Coventry.
EM CITATION:
On the 29th September, 1930, a fall of roof occurred in the Hedley Pit, South Moor, County Durham, partially burying a hewer, Frederick Beaumont. A chargeman, Victor King, was the first to come to the rescue. He found that a small passage-way remained open by which the buried man might be reached and, with the assistance of his son Richard and John George Tarn, be immediately built two chocks of timber to keep it open. The passage was seven yards long and about two feet square and the only practicable method of rescue wasfor three men to crawl along the passage-way and lie full length, two in the passage-way and one over Beaumont’s body, and pass back, one at a time, the stones that were pinning him down.
This perilous and arduous work was carried on for nine hours by a team of miners (including Victor King) working in relays under the direction of the manager (Walter Robert Scott) and the under-manager (Robert Reed) until at last Beaumont was released, shaken but otherwise uninjured. During the whole nine hours the roof was shifting and “trickling” and on four occasions Beaumont was almost freed when a further fall buried him again. At one time the danger of a further fall appeared so great that the manager telephoned for a doctor (Dr. Charles James Brookfield Fox) to come to the pit to amputate Beaumont’s leg and so expedite his release. Fortunately — as it turned out — the doctor found it impossible to amputate in the restricted area in which Beaumont was confined, but he remained on the scene until Beaumont was rescued and examined and treated him before sending him to the surface. Shortly after Beaumont was extricated the whole of the tunnel collapsed.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
