Pte 15403 William Irving Thomlinson

• Age: 22
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: A.35

William Irving Thomlinson was born in Liverpool on 10th February 1895, baptised on the 7th July 1895 at St Bridget's, Wavertree, and was the son of William Thomlinson and his wife Clara Mabel (nee Irving) who had been married at St Peter, Bolton in July 1888. Both Clara and William had been born in Cumberland. 

At the time of the 1901 census the family lived at 5 Cumberland Avenue, off Ullet Road, Sefton Park.

William’s mother was 39 and his father was 45 and was working as an assistant superintendant at Liverpool Post Office. The couple had six children – Joseph aged 11, Hilda 9, Beatrice 8, William Irving 6, Mabel 4 and Constance 10 months old. The family had a general servant 30 year old Alice Yore. 

By 1911 the census records the family living at the same address.

William Irving is still at school. His father is now a superintendant at the Post Office. The couple have all six children living at home, only the eldest Joseph is working, as a bank clerk. Alice Yore is still working for the family.

William Irving was educated at Liverpool Institute and worked for Cunard prior to enlistment. He enlisted at St George's Hall on the 31st August 1914, joining the 17th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 15403.

He enlisted at St George's Hall on 31/08/1914 joining the 17th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 15403.

He was billeted at Prescot Watch Factory from 14^th September 1914, he trained there and also at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 17th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. He arrived in France on 7^th November 1915.

William was killed in action, aged 22, on 09/04/1917 which was the opening day of the Battle of Arras.

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

William now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery in France at A.35 where his headstone bears the epitaph:

"TO BE WITH CHRIST WHICH IS FAR BETTER".

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.

Liverpool Daily Post 23rd April 1917

THOMLINSON - April 9, killed in action, aged 22 years, Private William Irving, K.L.R., younger beloved son of Mr and Mrs W. Thomlinson, 5 Cumberland Avenue.

He is commemorated on the following Memorials:

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall, Panel 38 Right 

Liverpool Institute (now LIPA)

Cunard Staff (now situated in Our Lady and St Nicholas Church Liverpool).

Soldiers Effects to father William, no Pension record found

Father died in 1935 aged 79.

Mother died on the 26th Dec 1941.

We currently have no further information on William Irving Thomlinson, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.

Older brother Joseph Frank(written as T.) attested 12th Dec 1915, aged 24 years 6 months, A/Sgt 7025/357940 with the 10^th (Scottish) Battalion KLR.

Due to varicose veins he did not serve overseas. Discharged 13th Dec 1918.