George Towse was born on 10th March 1892 at Market Weighton, one of six children born to George and Annie Towse. At the time of the 1901 Census, George was living with his parents and younger brothers Ernest, Albert and Frank at Burn Bridge.
On 29th March 1908, George enlisted in the Royal Navy as a signal boy II, earning a promotion eight months later to signal boy I. On 10th March 1910, he was further promoted to ordinary signalman, and six months later joined the battleship HMS Agamemnon, gaining an advancement to signalman on 5th December 1911.
George left the Agamemnon on 18th February 1913, most likely because of illness as he was invalided out of the service with tuberculosis on 9th July 1914. Tragically, on 8th April 1915 at the family home in Mill Lane, Pannal, he died of the disease, and was buried two days later in Pannal (St. Robert of Knaresborough) Churchyard.
As George left the Royal Navy before the outbreak of war in August 1914, he is not commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.