Pte 13162 Walter Jaundrill

• Age: 35
• From: Prescot, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Sunday 30th July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

Walter was born on 01st September 1880 in Prescot, the son of John Jaundrill and his wife Ann (née Seddon). He was baptised when he was four years old, on 24th September 1884, in St. Mary the Virgin Church, Prescot, his family living at that time in Sewell Street, his father’s occupation collier. 

The spelling of the surname varies on records: Jondrill, Johndrill, Jandrell, among others (on the 1871 census the surname is Drill, father John Drill).

His father was born in Prescot, and his mother in Whiston. They married in 1859 at St Mary’s Church, Prescot and had at least eleven children:  William, born in Whiston, died in infancy;  the couple then moved to Haydock where John was born (who died at age 2), followed by twins Elizabeth and Sarah, Isaac, and William;  by 1873 they had moved to Prescot, where Martha, Jane (died in infancy), John, Walter, and Annie were born.

At the time of the 1881 census the family is found at Dog Kennell Cottage, Knowsley, with five children; Walter is 7 months old. His father is a coal miner. 

The 1891 Census shows the family living at 56 Sewell Street, Prescot. Both parents are present and his father is shown as a 53 year old coal miner. Also present are Walter aged 10 and his siblings; William aged 20, Martha aged 18, John aged 13 and Annie, 3

By 1901 the family are still living at 56 Sewell Street. Both parents are still present with his father now aged 62 and a labourer at a Wire factory, his mother is 59. Walter is aged 20 and is employed as a coalminer. His siblings John and Annie are still in the household. John, 23, is a railway shunter, and Annie is 13.

Walter married Annie Lloyd in the 4th quarter of 1907, in St. Mary’s Church, Prescot. Their daughter Amy May was born on 1st January 1909.

His mother died in 1910, aged 68. 

The 1911 Census finds Walter and Annie living at 38 Warrington Road, Prescot. Walter, 30, is a coal miner/hewer, Annie is 28.  Also in the household are their 2 year old daughter Amy, his widowed mother-in-law, Jane Lloyd, 60, and a cousin, Annie Lloyd, 18.              

Another child, Ann Jane was born on 11th September 1911 and a son, Walter, was born on 24th August 1913.

In 1911 his widowed father and son John are at 82 Sewell Street, with married daughter Annie Case. He is still working, at 72, as a general labourer at British Insulated & Helsby Cables, where son John, 34, also works. 

Walter enlisted at Seaforth on 24th August 1914 joining the 11th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment and becoming Private 13162. The battalion was formed at Seaforth on the day that Walter joined, ahead of the formation of the Pals battalions a week later at St George's Hall. They trained at Barossa Barracks, Aldershot and moved to Farnham on 28th November 1914.  On 11th January 1915 the battalion was designated as a Pioneer Battalion and thus became 11th Battalion King's Regiment (Pioneers).  It was the first of many such Pioneer Battalions formed and as such the men underwent specialist training in bridge building, trench digging and mine digging amongst others. On 20th March 1915 they moved to Watts Common, Farnborough for further training. They remained there until the 19th May when they left England via Folkestone bound for France. They arrived at Boulogne on 20th May 1915. By the 25th May they had received orders to proceed to Vlamertinghe for attachment to the second army. Travelling aboard some 45 London Omnibuses, upon reaching their destination they were sent to the Yser Canal to assist with strengthening the defences and making communication and support trenches.     

Walter was transferred to the 17th Battalion (Pals) of The King's Liverpool Regiment on 11th June 1916. By this time the Liverpool Pals were stationed at Maricourt in readiness for the big push. The 17th Battalion was part of the attack at Montauban on 01st July 1916 and also took part in the murderous fighting at Trones Wood between the 10th and 12th July 1916. Following the clearance of Trones Wood the next objective was the village of Guillemont. Walter, as part of the 17th Battalion took part in the attack on 30th July 1916 and was sadly killed in action, aged 35.

17th Battalion Diary 

The Battalion was in support to 19 & 20 Battalions K.L.R. 2 Coys. behind 19th & 2 Coys. behind 20th. Very thick mist. The attack was pushed home to the objective in places but in the main was held up by machine gun fire from hidden machine guns.

Fighting continued all day swaying backwards and forwards until by 6pm about 300 yards in depth had been gained & consolidated all along our front.

Casualties in the 17th Battalion were 15 Officers and 281 Other Ranks

Further details are reported in more detailed by Everard Wyrall in his book The History of the King’s Regiment (Liverpool) 1914-1919 Volume II 1916-1917

The 17th King’s had advanced (two companies each behind the 19th and 20th Battalions) in small columns. They too suffered heavily from machine-gun fire and were quickly absorbed into the waves that preceded them. They also shared the gains and losses of that terrible day.

When darkness fell on the battlefield the 30th Division held a line from the railway on the eastern side of Trones Wood , southwards and including Arrow Head Copse, to east of Maltz Horn Farm. On this line the division was relieved by the 55th Division during the early hours of the 31st July. 

The events of 30th July 1916 were regarded at the time as Liverpool’s blackest day. There follows an extract from The History of the 89th Brigade written by Brigadier General Ferdinand Stanley which gives an indication of the events of the day.

Guillemont

Well the hour to advance came, and of all bad luck in the world it was a thick fog; so thick that you couldn’t see more than about ten yards. It was next to impossible to delay the attack – it was much too big an operation- so forward they had to go. It will give some idea when I say that on one flank we had to go 1,750 yards over big rolling country. Everyone knows what it is like to cross enclosed country which you know really well in a fog and how easy it is to lose your way. Therefore, imagine these rolling hills, with no landmarks and absolutely unknown to anyone. Is it surprising that people lost their way and lost touch with those next to them? As a matter of fact, it was wonderful the way in which many men found their way right to the place we wanted to get to. But as a connected attack it was impossible.

The fog was intense it was practically impossible to keep direction and parties got split up. Owing to the heavy shelling all the Bosches had left their main trenches and were lying out in the open with snipers and machine guns in shell holes, so of course our fellows were the most easy prey.

It is so awfully sad now going about and finding so many splendid fellows gone. 

He was initially reported as Missing and the family enlisted the help of the Red Cross in an attempt to find news of Walter. Annie appealed to the British Red Cross on 07th September 1916, enquiring about her husband, 17th Bn., D Company, XIV Platoon, date unofficially reported missing: 25/07/1916.  (Perhaps this is the date on which Annie last heard from her husband.)

She received a letter in response dated 20th October 1917 from the Enquiry Department for Wounded and Missing (the letter is now held in Prescot Museum) -

Dear Madam, 

Now that over a year has passed without news, notwithstanding all possible enquiries made by us at home and abroad, we fear that the soldiers who were missing from the 17th King’s Liverpool Regiment in July 1916 cannot have survived.  This was as you know the time of the Great Offensive on the Somme front, and the battle was everywhere very violent.

Our reports state that the 17th King’s Liverpools were fighting east of Albert on 30 July 1916.  According to one account :- 

“On July 30th 1916 at 6:30 a.m. to the left of Guillemont, between two farms we attacked the German trenches and took three lines; but were only able to hold two.  The fighting lasted all day and all night and the Battalion was relieved at 7 a.m. the next day.”

One of the farms was Waterlot Farm.

In the stress of the incessant fighting men had little opportunity for noticing the movements of their comrades.  After questioning every reliable witness whom we could find, we have had reluctantly to give up all hope of hearing anything of your husband’s fate, though we never cease to watch the Prisoners’ Lists from Germany for the names of all the Missing.

With much sympathy in what we feel convinced is the sad loss of the family,

Yours faithfully,

His death was later presumed, for official purposes, as having occurred on or since 30th July 1916.

Walter's body was not recovered, he has no known grave and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.  

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. 

On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

Walter earned his three medals. (His 1914-15 Star was issued under the name Jaundill.)

His children were 7, 4, and not yet 3 years old when Walter was killed. His widow Annie received his Army pay and a War Gratuity of £9.  She was awarded a pension of £1-0s-6d a week from March 1917, living at that time at 38 Warrington Road, Prescot. She is later shown at 27 Eccleston Street, and 17 Sewell Street, Prescot.

In 1917 Annie placed a notice in the Prescot newspaper:

“In loving memory of my dear husband Pte. Walter Jaundrill, King’s (Liverpool) Regiment. - From his sorrowing Wife and Children. (“Peace, perfect peace.”)”

Walter is also commemorated on the following Memorials:

Roll of Honour at St Mary's Church, Prescot

St Mary the Virgin Church Servicemen Statue 

Prescot Civic Memorial (the first permanent memorial to be erected in the U.K., dedicated in 1916 to the fallen of the Battle of the Somme) 

His nephew, Isaac Jaundrill, son of his brother Isaac, served in the South Lancs Regiment and was transferred to the Somerset Light Infantry.  He died of shell wounds on 04th September 1918 and now rests in Heilly Station Cemetery, Méricourt-l’Abbé. Isaac was 24 and left a widow.

His father died in 1926, aged 88.

In 1939 Annie, 56, is living alone at 12 Warrington Road, Prescot.  Annie never remarried and died in 1962, aged 79.

His daughter Amy married in 1937 and in 1939 was living in Huyton with her electrician husband. She had a daughter, and died in 2002, at the age of 93. 

His daughter Ann never married, and in 1939 was employed as a housekeeper in Allerton, Liverpool. She died in 1963 in Roby at the age of 52.

Walter married in 1938 but is not found on the 1939 register (his wife and daughter are living with her parents in Whiston).  Walter died in 1985 in Knowsley, aged 71. Walter married Edith Hannah Heaton and went on to have two children, Ruth and Peter. Ruth sadly passed on the 16th September 1966 in Queensland, Australia. Walter also served his country in the Second World War before returning to work for the BICC.

Grateful thanks are extended to Stephen Nulty from Prescot Roll of Honour for assistance with the biograpy of Walter and permission to use it and the photograph of Walter.
Please visit www.prescot-rollofhonour.info  

Grateful thanks are extended to Andrew Jaundrill who has provided further details for Walter's son named Walter after his father. 

We currently have no further information on Walter Jaundrill, if you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.