2nd Lieut Hayward Wane

• Age: 21
• From: Lytham St. Annes, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 18th Btn
• K.I.A Wednesday 18th October 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

Hayward Wane was born in the first quarter of 1895 in Barrow in Furness and was the son of John Wane and his wife Florence (nee Gabb), of 10 Commonside, Ansdell, Lytham St Anne's, Lancs.

The 1911 Census shows the family living at Lancaster Bank, Diconson Terrace, Lytham. His mother Florence is aged 55, born 1856 in Droitwich, Worcestershire. She has been married for 31 years and has had eight children, of which sadly two have died. She has three at the home address at the time of the Census. All three were born in Barrow in Furness. Florence Adeline aged 28, born 1883 no occupation, William Harold aged 27, born 1884 who is a Bank Clerk and Hayward aged 16, born 1895 who is at school.

He was serving in the 18th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment previously as Private 17009 before he obtained his Commission to Second Lieutenant in the same Battalion in 1915. He was mentioned in the London Gazzette dated 29th May 1915 as a temporary 2nd Lieutenant with effect from 08th April 1915. He was not part of the original draft that left Larkhill for France in November 1915, but he was present at the assault south of Montauban on the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, 01st July 1916, and wounded during the course of the action. However his wounds can not have been to serious as he was back on duty with the Battalion by 18th October, the date of his death in action, during the Battalion’s attack on enemy trenches near Flers.

The Battalion had been ordered to make an attack on the German position known as Gird Trench near Flers which had been unsuccessfully attacked five days earlier by the 89th Brigade. The objectives of the 18th Battalion were in the centre of the 21st Brigade attack, and included the capture and holding of a German strong point.

However the preliminaries to the attack went badly when on the evening of the 17th October, the enemy who obviously had sensed that another attack was coming, heavily shelled the British front and communication line trenches, and severely mauled No.3 Company, killing its Commander, Captain G Ravenscroft. This so unsettled the company, that it had to be withdrawn from the line, and the reserve Company only just arrived at the attack position, through narrow and congested trenches, before Zero Hour, which was 03.30am, on 18th October.

Constant rain had turned No Man’s Land to a bog, and the Battalion was cold, wet, hungry and tired. Thus, with morale at a low ebb, the attack was made at Zero Hour, in four waves, the Battalion got as far as Gird Trench, where it found that the wire was largely intact. Many men then hesitated to jump into the enemy trench and began to filter back towards the British lines. Despite three attempts to stop this, the attack slowed to a standstill, and all four attacking waves became merged into one. With enfillading machine-gun fire from the flanks, and enemy artillery firing onto the Gird Trench itself, the assault inevitably failed, and the survivors returned across No Man’s Land into their own front line.

During the course of the attack, Second-Lieutenant Wane, three other officers and twenty seven other ranks were also killed. He was aged twenty one.

His body was not found and identified after the war and he is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme at Thiepval.

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.”

Probate on his estate was given on the 3^rd March, 1917 to his father, John, a retired Bank manger of £225 16s and 4d.

Hayward is commemorated on the Men of District Bank Memorial in Manchester.

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