PRIVATE GEORGE WILLIAM GOTT
DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S WEST RIDING REGIMENT
13TH APRIL 1918 AGE 24
BURIED: MONT NOIR MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
Private Gott's surname is so very place specific that it was hardly necessary to record his address on his headstone. To this day the greatest number of Gotts are still to be found in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in the Bradford (BD) postal code area. Gill Top is no more than a hamlet, a small cluster of cottages just ouside Cowling.
Gott's father, who confirmed the inscription, must have considered Gill Top as his son's true home even though the Craven Herald, in a report on his death, says that George William Gott had "resided for some time with his aunt, Mrs Wormwell, at Aireview, Cononley". Before joining the army Gott had worked as a traveller for Messrs Lowcock and Sons, clothiers in Skipton.
William Gott joined up in January 1916 under the Derby Scheme. In the summer of 1917 he was invalided home with dysentery and spent six months in hospital in Bournemouth and then several months convalescing in North Shields. He returned to France in March 1918 and was killed on 13 April when he was hit in the stomach by a piece of shrapnel.