George State was born at Islington, London, on 26 January 1893, the fourth of six surviving children of John State, an assistant prison warder and former Sapper who had taken part in the Nile Expedition to relieve General Gordon, and his wife Elizabeth (née Roberts). John State died in 1901 at the age of 37.  

By the time of the 1911 census, George was employed as a Printer and Warehouseman, but in October that year he joined the Royal Navy at Portsmouth as a Stoker, spending time in the stokers’ training ship HMS RENOWN and the minelayer HMS LATONA before joining the pre-dreadnought battleship HMS HINDUSTAN in April 1912, being rated Stoker 1st Class in June 1912. In HINDUSTAN he saw service in the Mediterranean and, at the start of WW1, in the Northern Patrol.

On 19 October 1915 he joined HMS DOLPHIN, and in December 1915 moved to HMS BONAVENTURE, the depot ship for the Sixth Submarine Flotilla based on the Tyne.  His record shows him serving in HMS C10 from 1 April 1916.  Stoker State was killed when C10 was engaged mistakenly by HMS OUSE and HMS BAT of Escort Force D with a convoy off Blyth at 11.05 on the morning of 3 May 1917.  Another man was wounded.  George State is buried at Blyth Cemetery.

He left a widow, Minnie F (née Bryant) whom he had married in 1915.