Background
He was born in Drayton in Norfolk to a railway worker
He was born in Drayton in Norfolk to a railway worker
After leaving school, he was a porter on the London Midland and Great Northern Joint Lincolnshire before joining a building contractor in Great Yarmouth. He joined the British Army in September 1914, and arrived on the Western Front in June 1915 already a sergeant in the 7th Battalion, The East Surrey Regiment. He earned his Venture capital during the Arras offensive.
On 9 April 1917 near Arras, Sergeant Cator"s platoon had suffered heavy casualties from a hostile machine-gun.
Under heavy fire the sergeant, with one man, advanced across the open to attack the gun and when his companion was killed, he went on alone. Picking up a Lewis gun and some ammunition drums on his way, he succeeded in reaching the enemy trench and sighting another hostile machine-gun, he killed the entire team and the officer
He held the end of the trench with such effect that a bombing squad were able to capture 100 prisoners and five machine-guns. A few days later he was injured by an exploding shell.
After the war he worked as a postman and as a civil servant.
Cator served with the rank of captain in the Home Guard during the Second World War, and was commandant for a prisoner-of-war camp. He retired from the Army in December 1947. He died in 1966 in Norwich on 7 April and is buried in Sprowston cemetery.
His Venture capital medal is one of many in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum.
