George Burdon McKean was one of 71 members of the Canadian Forces to receive a Victoria Cross during the First World War. In honour of his actions, a mountain in the Jasper National Park in Canada and the town square of Cagnicourt in France are named after him.
George McKean was born in Willington, County Durham, in July 1888. After the death of his father, his family moved to Bishop Auckland where he was a pupil at Bishop Barrington School until he was apprenticed to a carpenter. As a young man, George emigrated to Canada to join his older brother and worked on a cattle ranch.
George enlisted in the Canadian Army in January 1915. Following training he joined the 14th Infantry Battalion (Royal Montreal Regiment) in France in June 1916. George was made an officer in April 1917 after he had been awarded the Military Medal for bravery.
On 27 April 1918, during a night raid on German trenches at Gavrelle. Lieutenant McKean led a group of soldiers. As the soldiers advanced, they were pinned down by machine gun fire and grenades were thrown from a strongly-defended German position. Realising that this obstacle had to be destroyed or the raid would fail. George rushed the barbed wire barricade armed only with his revolver. He jumped into the trench and fought with two German defenders before killing them both. The remainder of his men them joined George and they cleared the trench and dug-outs with hand grenades.
After receiving the Victoria Cross for this action the people of Bishop Auckland presented George McKean with an illuminated address and gold watch. This however was not the end of George's military career as he was also awarded the Military Cross in September 1918. George and his patrol made up of two companions were surrounded by 150 Germans. Bluffing, George began waving his revolver and barking orders as if in charge of a sizable force. "I was dumbfounded, expecting the Huns to open on us for we were frightfully outnumbered," he later wrote, "for a few seconds we stood staring at one another until we three Canadians scouts found ourselves in the middle of a mob of fleeing Germans." George, however, was wounded by shrapnel in this fighting and took no further part in the war.
After being demobilised in 1919, George McKean married and settled in Brighton, England. He was tragically killed in an industrial accident on 28 November 1926.