Pte 57579 John Williams

John was born in 1896, his birth was registered in St Mary's, Dundee. SDGW says he was born Dundee, Forfar. His brother Owen was born in Dundee in 1900.

The pension card tells us this soldier was the son of John Robert and Mary Williams, of 91 Rathbone Street, Liverpool. At this address on the electoral rolls from 1920 until 1937 are John Robert, Mary, and Owen Williams.

 

In 1901 a Williams family is found in Duke Street, Liverpool: Mary (married, age 26), John 4, and Owen, 11 months, all born in Scotland. The father is not in the household, which often meant a man was away at sea.

 

A later newspaper notice states that his father served in France, with the Inland Water Transport.  The Inland Water Transport and Docks Section of the Royal Engineers was originally formed in December of 1914 to deal with and to develop transport on canals and waterways of France and Belgium.

 

Early in the war, the Royal Engineers advertised throughout the country for men to join the Inland Water Transport Section.  They needed a variety of skilled men, including motor mechanics, canal watermen, stevedores, boilermakers, marine engineers, able seamen, etc., who would work at their own trade and be paid from 3/2d to 5/9d a day. (An infantry Private in 1918 earned about 1/3d a day.)

 

As there are about a dozen men by the name John Williams who served in the Inland Water Transport section during the war, it has not been possible to definitively identify his father.

 

John Williams junior was born in 1897 in Dundee. He had a sister and at least one other brother, according to a later newspaper notice.

 

The family has not been found on the 1911 England census and unfortunately the Scotland census is not available.  John enlisted in Dundee, but by at least 1918 his parents were living in Liverpool.

 

Before enlisting, John worked in the Balgay works (P. G. Walker & Son), one of the many jute mills in Dundee, which had become the global centre of the jute industry. Throughout the late nineteenth century, over half of Dundee’s workforce worked in the textile sector, which, from the 1860s on, was dominated by jute (also known as hessian or burlap).  From the covers on the wagons that were used to settle the wild west of America to the humble sand bag, the jute came from Dundee. In 1900 Dundee had over 100 working jute mills.

 

 

He enlisted in Dundee and was formerly 535, Highland Divisional Cyclist Company. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he enlisted in about June 1915, when he was 18 years old.

 

At some point he was transferred to the 20th Bn., King’s Liverpool Regiment, and after shipping overseas was posted to the 18th (Lancashire Hussars) K.L.R., likely when the 20th Battalion was disbanded in February 1918.

He was serving in the 18^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 57579 when he died of wounds on the 27^th March 1918,  aged 21, during the German Spring Offensive. 

John 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.

His parents placed a notice in the Liverpool Echo on 1st May 1918:

“March 27, died of wounds, in field ambulance, aged 21 years, Signaller John Williams, K.L.R., the dearly-loved and eldest son of John Williams, Inland Water Transport, France.  R.I.P. - Inserted by his sorrowing Mother, Sister, Brothers, 91, Rathbone Street.”

 

His death was also announced in Dundee in The People’s Journal on 4th May 1918:

“Signaller John Williams, Liverpool Reg’t., died from wounds. Previous to enlistment he was engaged in Balgay Jute Works,”

 

On the first anniversary of his death his loved ones placed an In Memoriam notice in the People’s Journal: 

“In affectionate remembrance of Signaller John Williams, 18th K.L.R., died of wounds in France, March 27th, 1918. R.I.P.  On whose soul, sweet Jesus, have mercy.  Inserted by his sister and aunts, City Rd., Dundee.”

 

A Dundee newspaper gives his address as 12 City Road which apparently was not a single-family home, as at least two other men have this as their address in their obituaries  (Henry Mabe of the Black Watch, and Thomas McAvoy, Royal Highlanders).  From 1909 to 1922 the city directory shows M. or C. Whitecross at this address. 

Soldiers Effects to mother Mary, Pension to mother Mary and father John Robert, 91 Rathbone St, Upper Duke St

His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £13-10s went to his mother Mary. She was awarded a pension of 6/- a week. 

His mother died in about 1938, and his father about ten years later. 

John is commemorated on

Liverpool’s Hall of Remembrance, Panel 32 Right

Scotland’s National War Memorial