Earlier this autumn we ran the story of a ‘forgotten soldier’, George Motley, from Shipley, on this page.

Reader Peter Yates got in touch about his research into George’s death in Ireland in 1921.

The son of Thomas and Elizabeth Motley of Shipley was laid to rest at Nab Wood Cemetery with military honours.

But, according to Mr Yates’s research, he wasn’t commemorated, nor was his grave recorded on the Commonwealth War Graves Site.

George, of the East Lancashire Regiment, went missing in Ireland on April 10, 1921, during the Anglo-Irish War or the Irish War of Independence.

“As Motley was sadly killed prior to the Order in Council of August 31, 1921, that declared the end of the Great War, for bureaucratic purposes he should be recorded on the Roll of Honour for this period,” wrote Mr Yates, who is collecting information to present to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Now John Mottley, the son of George’s half-brother John, has been in touch with news of his early life and death.

John writes: “In 1914, George was living with his family in Shipley when his father died suddenly at Clayton Workhouse. The whereabouts of his mother at that time are unclear. George and most of his nine younger surviving siblings were were taken into care by a welfare organisation called The Guardians, overseen by the North Bierley Poor Law Union.

“George was cared for in a Cottage Home, which could have been the one at 9 Hope View, Carr Lane, Shipley.

“While in care, he often got into trouble with the school authorities and the police and regularly absconded in his attempts to return to his mother.

“In 1917 he was accepted into the Gordon Boys’ Messenger Corps at Bournemouth. In December 1918, George was a labourer living with his mother in Padiham, Lancashire, when he enlisted in the East Lancashire Regiment at Preston. Some time later he was sent to Ireland with his regiment where he was killed in Headford, County Kerry on April 10, 1921.

“It has been stated that, after he was shot, his body was left for four days at the side of a road and was eventually dumped in a bog. It was recovered six years later and he had a well-publicised public military funeral at Nab Wood Cemetery in Bingley on January 18, 1927. His single-occupancy grave, plot number F470, was purchased by his mother and is currently unmarked.”

John says George’s surname is spelled both Motley and Mottley, following a series of clerical errors.

He adds that George was the first cousin, twice removed, of Ira Ickringill, the former Mayor of Keighley, and founder of Ickringill’s Mill in Legrams Lane, Bradford. He was also the great grandson of Isaac Ickeringill, the ‘Physical Force’ Chartist who participated in the ‘Bingley War’ of 1848.