Pte 52258 Edmund Wild

By 1911 they are at 49 Durham Street, Harpurhey (Blackley), Manchester. His father is 50, a cotton warper for a dyers and printers, his mother is 39, Edmund is 17, an assistant in a yarn warehouse, Ernest is 12 and Alfred 10. 

 

Edmund worked for Messrs. William Hall & Co. Ltd., Newton Heath before enlisting.

He enlisted in Manchester and was formerly Private 4802 in the Manchester Regiment and following a transfer he was serving with the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 52258 when he was killed in action on the 28^th March 1918, aged 24, during the German Spring Offensive. 

The Battalion diary records the events of the day as follows:

During the morning the enemy attacked the troops on our right flank and succeeded in capturing ARVILLERS, menacing our right flank. Three companies of the Battalion had to be immediately echeloned backwards as protection, the Battalion engaging the enemy, who were attempting to come out of ARVILLERS. This position was held during heavy fighting until 2pm when the Battalion was informed that French troops had come into position in the rear. In order for the Division to be relieved the Battalion had to hold their ground whilst the 2^nd Bedfordshire Regt and 2^nd Bn. R.S.F.’s passed through on their way to the rear. At 4pm the Battalion commenced to move off in small parties, passing through the French, and marching through MEZIERES, MOREUIL to MORISEL where hot dinner was provided. The Battalion then formed up and moved up by companies to ROUVREL and were billeted for the night. By this time the total casualties had reached 23 Officers and 457 O.R.

Edmund's body was not recovered from teh battlefield or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial. 

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.

Based on the amount of the War Gratuity, he served for 21 months, enlisting in about June 1916.

 

Edmund was remembered in a notice in the Manchester Evening News on 6th May 1918:

“Private Edmund Wild, 52258 King’s Liverpool Reg’t., 28, White-way Street, Conran Street, Moston, killed in action March 28, 1918.  Sadly missed by his FRIENDS at 24, Dollond  Street, Blackley, Manchester.”  (At this address in 1911 was a Robert Lloyd, a cotton warehouseman, so perhaps a co-worker.)

 

His mother Maria, at 28 Whiteway Street, received Edmund’s Army effects and a War Gratuity of £9-10s.  The pension card shows that she was awarded a pension of 10/- a week.

His father died in the June quarter of 1926, aged 66.