WW1 British Mercantile Marine Medal Pair - George Morton Taylor, Mercantile Marine (Merchant Navy)
British War Medal – GEORGE M. TAYLOR
Mercantile Marine Medal – GEORGE M. TAYLOR
Comes with original issue envelope for the BWM.
George Morton Taylor was born on 26 December 1899 at Childer Thornton, Cheshire, the son of Robert James Godfrey Taylor and Cora Taylor. Early census records show that he spent part of his childhood living with extended family, and in the 1911 Census he is recorded aged 11, residing at West Street, Holywell Green, in the household of his uncle John Thomas Morton, where he is listed as a nephew and noted as attending school.
By adulthood, Taylor had returned to Cheshire, and later records confirm his progression into maritime and licensed trade employment. During the First World War, he served in the Mercantile Marine (Merchant Navy), qualifying for the standard British War Medal and Mercantile Marine War Medal awarded to civilian seafarers who served at sea during the conflict. Although individual ship details are not recorded here, his entitlement confirms qualifying service under wartime conditions between 1914 and 1918.
Following the war, Taylor married Frances Gwendoline Mottershead in April 1931 at Stoke-upon-Trent, and the couple later had at least one son, Robert I. D. Taylor, born in 1932. By the time of the 1939 England and Wales Register, George Morton Taylor was living at the Griffin Hotel, Bowdon, Cheshire, and was recorded as a Licensed Victualler, indicating a transition from seafaring to public house management. His entry also confirms Merchant Marine War Service, formally acknowledging his wartime contribution.
Taylor remained in civilian life following the Second World War and continued to reside in the north-west of England. He died on 8 August 1981 at Blackpool, aged 81, with probate granted at Liverpool later that month.
His Merchant Navy medal pair represents the service of a civilian mariner whose wartime contribution was essential to sustaining Britain’s maritime lifelines during the First World War, and whose later life reflects the common post-war transition of merchant seamen back into civilian occupations.
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