George Gladwin was born in 1826 in Youlgreave, Derbyshire, England. His father was Samuel Gladwin and his mother Elizabeth Prince.

George worked at some stage as a corn merchant in Derbyshire, and at another time he worked as a train driver on the Manchester railway. Towards the end of his life he worked as a railway policeman in Manchester.

He married Margaret Johnson in 1852. A daughter, Mary Elizabeth Gladwin, was born in Taddington, Derbyshire, in 1854.

Sometime between 1854 and 1858, the Gladwin family moved from Taddington in Derbyshire to Ardwick in Lancashire.

Two sons, Samuel and Thomas, were born in Ardwick in 1858 and 1860. Daughters, Joyce and Ellen, were born in 1863 and 1866.

In 1871, his daughter Mary Elizabeth was living with his widowed sister, Joyce Lingard, on her 20 acre farm in Taddington, Derbyshire. His seven-year old daughter Joyce was adopted by Isaac and Elizabeth Roberts of Ardwick. Son Samuel had left home, and son Thomas was the only child still living with his parents. The four year-old daughter, Ellen, was living with George's widowed aunt, Joyce Woolley, in Salford, Lancashire.

George died in 1872, aged 46. He was buried in Manchester, but there is a memorial to him on his daughter Mary's grave in Taddington.