Private George William Crossley
G/99184 25th Middlesex Regiment
Formerly East Lancashire Regiment
Died of Wounds 17th December 1918, aged 39
Lived at Parkside, Southern Avenue, Ightenhill
Buried in Ormsk, Russia
Burnley Express 1st January 1919

His Burnley home was Southern Avenue, Ightenhill and he was 39. I think his wife was called Catherine Norah and they had two children, Joan & Laurence who were 10 and 7 respectively when he died.

His father was Lawrence Crossley, Fish Fruit & Game Dealer at the corner of Bridge St & St.James' St.

(Information from his relative Carole Turner)

I think I can add something to the note there, and to the report from the Burnley Express – particularly in relation to the question of why a British soldier died in Siberia after the end of the first world war.

George enlisted in the East Lancashire Regiment, then transferred to 25th Middlesex Regiment.

The 37 British War Graves at Vladivostok, and the 13 names on the Vladivostok Memorial, are due to the period of confusion in Siberia which followed the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. The establishment of a Siberian (anti-Bolshevik) Republic in December 1917 (and of other Republics in Siberia a little later) was followed by the march of the Czechoslovak Divisions in the Russian service from Poland eastwards, and in particular by the arrival of the 2nd Czechoslovak Division at Valdivostok in May 1918. The Japanese Government had sent a small detachment to that port in January, 1918; British and Japanese Marines landed on the 5th April; a British battalion came in June, and another in December, and in October a stronger Canadian force had landed. The autumn fighting went in favour of the Allies and Admiral Koltchak's Government, but the tide turned in 1919. An official French statement gave the number of troops of nine Allied or Associated nations in Siberia, in March 1919, as nearly 120,000, including 55,000 Czechoslovaks; they were gradually withdrawn. The British and Japanese left in the winter of 1919; Koltchak was finally defeated on the 8th January 1920, at Krasnoyarsk; the Czechoslovaks and an American hospital evacuated Vladivostok in March 1920. The Siberian Expeditionary Force was mainly Canadian, and it included No. II Canadian Stationary Hospital and No. 16 Canadian Field Ambulance. It left the graves of 14 Canadian soldiers and 14 from the United Kingdom in Churkin Russian Naval Cemetery; those of seven sailors of the Royal Navy, one Marine and one United Kingdom soldier in the Lutheran part of Pokrovskaya Cemetery; and those of ten soldiers from the United Kingdom and three from Canada at other places in Siberia.

There is a photo of the Memorial at:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/68672451/george-crossley#view-photo=90249447

The article above says that there are 37 British War Graves at Vladivostok, and the Memorial says that the 13 names on the Vladivostok Memorial are of British soldiers who are buried elsewhere in Siberia. I wonder if you happen to know if any of the others were from Burnley (I guess it is possible that others from Burnley also enlisted in the East Lancashire Regiment and were then transferred to the Middlesex Regiment

(courtesy of David Lancaster)