George Malcolm, son of George and Barbara Malcolm, was born in the Glasgow area of Lanarkshire, Scotland, and joined the British military at a young age, serving with Her Majesty's 34th Regiment. At the age of 18 he was sent to Crimea and was there at the fall of Sebastopol in 1855. He also served during the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and at the siege of Lucknow, India. In 1859 he married Emily Frances Miller, the daughter of a Brazilian shipping merchant from Liverpool, Joseph Dundas Miller and his wife, Elizabeth Tomlinson.

George spent much of his military career in India, where one of his sons was born and where one of his daughters was married. George and Emily spent their last years in Essex County in England. Emily died in Halstead Essex in 1898. George then lived for a time with his daughter, Ethel May Elrington, and her family in Wethersfield, Essex, and later went to Canada to visit his son, George John Huntley Malcolm, and Huntley's family in Manitoba. He returned to England where he died in 1903 in London. He was buried beside his wife in Halstead, Essex, in the Halstead Cemetery.