Private George Glass 1/24th

Here is what I have discovered so far about a local soldier, George Glass, who died at Isandlwana.

'Death on the Battle Field. - The following names appear in the official list of those who fell at lsandula: Private Plant, Shelton, of the 1st battalion of the 24th Regiment; Private W. Glass, 1-24th Regiment, of Cauldon-place, formerly schoolmaster of the Hanley and Shelton Free Night School; and Private Hickin, l-24th Regiment, son of Mr. Hickin, locksmith, High-street.'

Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser - Saturday 08 March 1879, p.5

25B/408 Private George Glass, 1/24th was born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire in 1856, the youngest son and penultimate child of William and Martha Glass. His family had strong military ties in that his father William, hailed from Armagh, Northern Ireland and in 1822 had joined the ranks of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Regiment of Foot, serving 22 years with the regiment. William married whilst in the army, his wife, George's mother Martha came originally from Scotland. Together they had nine children, the eldest born in Ireland, but most were born in the Staffordshire Potteries or neighbouring Newcastle after the couple had moved there in the 1840s when William Glass left the army. Here in both 1851 and 1861 he listed his employment as as a 'Staff Sergeant of Pensioners (Chelsea Pensioners)'.

George's mother Martha died in 1862, and by 1871 his father William was working as a bookkeeper. The family had moved to the town of Hanley and William had  remarried, this time to a woman named Susannah from Newport, Wales. At 14 years of age George was now old enough to go to work and was employed as a potter. There is no further local documentation about George, and though it is not impossible that he worked as a school teacher as noted in brief notification in the Sentinel, it seems more likely that the reporter was actually confusing George with his father. Not only is the dead soldier mistakenly listed as 'W. Glass' in the paper, but in the 1881 census William Glass describes himself as a former school master.

According to Norman Holme's The Silver Wreath, George Glass had joined the army in Liverpool on 28 July 1874, aged 18 years 4 months. He took part in the campaigns against the Gaika and Galeka tribes during 1877 and 1878 and marched into Zululand with the ill-fated centre column in 1879, being killed with most of his battalion at Isandlwana. George's effects and South Africa Medal were later claimed by his father.