Born at Worcester.
Enlisted at London on the 27th of January 1852.
Age: 18.
Height: 5' 7".
Trade: Baker.
Killed in action at Balaclava.
John Smith Parkinson singled Wootton out in an interview he gave about his experiences at the battle of the Alma, a month earlier:
"I vividly recollect the case of my old comrade - I must say, young - comrade, George Wootton, a Cheltenham [sic] man who was riding on my left in the ranks [at Alma].
The excitement of battle rather overcame him- he was at all times rather emotional - and seized with an overwhelming wish to be in the thick of the battle he made as if he would dash straight out of the ranks.
Just as he was talking wildly a shell from the heights struck the ground not more than ten or twelve paces in front of us. Wootton's terrified horse reared straight up, and would literally have gone over if we had not caught hold of the reins and so managed to keep him down and calm him.
That sobered George for the time, and he got plenty of opportunity to work off his agitation a few minutes later.
Poor George! He was killed in the Charge of the Light Brigade five weeks later It was said amongst us then that his excitement was his undoing, for, overcome by it, he rode out of the ranks, and rushed to meet the doom which was certain to any solitary horseman in that fatal valley."
[PB, October 2014: Parkinson was interviewed by Walter Wood for an article that appeared in the Royal Magazine vol. XVI, pp167ff. [date?]. A similar (possibly identical) version was published in Wood's collected Survivors' Tales of Great Events, Retold from Personal Narratives, London: Cassell, 1906, pp. 63-80. (Book, pdf and transcript now in the archive, and on this site here.)]
Next of kin: Father, William Wooten, living in the parish of St Owen's, Hereford.
He sent money from the Crimea to an Ann Wooten. (Relationship not shown, but may possibly have been his wife.)
He rode next to 1355 Edward Woodham, who mentions a conversation he had with him just before the Charge:
"he was shot down almost immediately and that he [Woodham] had the melancholy task of reporting his death to the bereaved widow [sic] and family."
(See copy of this, made in an interview shortly before the 1875 Dinner, in the 11th Hussar file.)
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava and Sebastopol.
Killed in action at Balaclava.