Pte 51616 Reginald Williams

• Age: 26
• From: Lancaster
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 12th October 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

Reginald Williams was born on 15th September 1890 in Bowerham Barracks, Lancaster, the third son of Ellis Williams and his wife Eliza Mary (née Studd). He was baptised on 2nd November in St. Paul’s, Scotforth, his father’s occupation Staff Sergeant. 

His father was born in Hanmer, Flintshire, and served for 25 years in the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment, and his mother was born in Chatham, Kent, the daughter of a soldier. She had married in 1881 and had a daughter Lily Bannister Smith, who was born after her father, Eliza's husband died in 1882.  

Ellis and Eliza married in 1885 in Hampshire and had seven children, all boys, one of whom died young. Reginald had an older brother Ellis, born in Hampshire, and by 1888 they had moved to Lancaster, where John, and younger brothers Lloyd, Herbert (Bert), Victor (who died young), and Percival (Percy) were born. 

In 1891 his father is a Quarter Master Sergeant in Bowerham Barracks. His mother is 29, half sister Lily is 8, Ellis is 4, John 2, and Reginald 6 months old. 

At the time of the 1901 Census the family, with daughter Lily and five sons, is found in Lancaster Barracks.  His father is 50, a canteen manager (army pensioner). 

Reginald was educated at Bowerham school, and after leaving school was employed by his father as a grocer.

The 1911 census finds his parents in Hanmer Place, Bowerham, with three boys at home.  His father is 60, a grocer/employer (army pensioner), and his mother is 51. Reginald is a partner in his father’s grocery business, Lloyd is 18, a printer, and Percy is 12, at school.  Also living with them is his grandmother Sarah Studd, 82. Three of the brothers have joined their father’s old regiment.  Ellis, 25, is a Lance Corporal with the 1st Bn K.O.R.L. at Havelock Barracks, Lucknow, India.  John, 22, a Lance Corporal, and Bert, 16, a Boy, are with the 2nd Bn K.O.R.L. in Fort Regent, Jersey, Channel Islands.

Reginald had moved to Liverpool prior to the war and was employed by Messrs Cooper and Co, wholesale and retail grocers, Liverpool.

He enlisted in Liverpool as Rifleman 4648 joining the 6th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Rifles). He embarked aboard the SS Princess Victoria sailing from Folkestone-Boulogne on 15th July 1916, reaching the 24th Infantry Base Depot on 16th July. He proceeded to 11th Entrenching Battalion on 02nd August and proceeded to the 17th Battalion K.L.R. on 05th August. He was appointed unpaid Lance Corporal on 09th August and was posted from 05th September 1916 to the 17th Battalion with the new service number 51616.

His biography in De Ruvigny showed his determination to enlist:-

On the outbreak of war in 1914 he endeavoured to enlist but was rejected on medical grounds. In January 1916, after undergoing an operation, he was pronounced fit and then enlisted. After a period of training went to France in August 1916. 

He was killed in action on the 12th October 1916 aged 26 during the Battle of the Transloy Ridges which was part of the ongoing Somme Offensive. 

All six brothers served, Lloyd enlisted in the K.O.R.L., and Percy enlisted on 01st August 1916 when he was 18 in the A.S.C. Motor Transport Section, and went to France in October 1918. Three of the brothers would not come home.  Reginald was the second loss the family suffered. He was killed in action on the 12th October 1916 aged 26 during the Battle of the Transloy Ridges which was part of the ongoing Somme Offensive.

17^th Bn War Diary:  Battle of Transloy Ridge –                                               

11-10-16 - Gird Trench/Gird Support – Battalion in front line and support trenches. British bombardment of enemy front line system commenced about midday.  Hostile shelling was intermittent throughout the day.

12-10-16  - Our bombardment continued. Enemy reply weak.  2.5 p.m. Zero hour. Attack on German front line system commenced.  Enemy wire was found to be uncut and attack was unsuccessful.  Hostile machine gun fire was very heavy and caused many casualties. Battalion H.Q. and Support Trench were heavily shelled throughout afternoon and evening. […] During this action all communication had to be carried out by runners and carrier pigeons as all wires were being continually cut by enemy shelling.

Casualties: 5 officers killed,  5 officers wounded, 38 OR killed, about 225 OR wounded/missing etc.

Graham Maddocks, in “Liverpool Pals” p.140, adds:

“As the whistle blew, the 17^th Battalion left its trenches to move forward.  […]  As soon as the attacking waves left their trenches the enemy artillery began to register on them, and at the same time, the defending infantry commenced a murderous rain of fire.  […]  Although their numbers had been depleted by the British bombardment, they were trained and experienced soldiers, well dug in on high ground, and for the most part, looking out on uncut wire.  As such, it was virtually impossible for them to miss the City Battalion men struggling to advance in the mud towards them.   The 17^th Battalion, on the left, was particularly badly hit, as its portion of No Man’s Land contained a slight rise in the ground, and as the troops emerged onto it they were silhouetted against the sky and became easy targets.  Those on the left of the attack, who managed to avoid the hail of bullets and make it to the German wire, then found that it was totally uncut, and thus trapped, they too became easy targets, to be picked off almost at the enemy’s will.  It was hardly surprising that, seeing the first waves being wiped out, some of the following waves turned back and made for their start lines. These lines were now packed with other waves of troops, however, and the fleeing men added to the congestion already there, and became easy prey for the German gunners.  There is some evidence also, to suggest that at this stage, the British trenches were also being hit by their own heavy artillery shells which were falling short.”

Reginald's body was not recovered or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave and 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.”

All six brothers served, Lloyd enlisted in the K.O.R.L., Percy enlisted on 01st August 1916 when he was 18 in the A.S.C. Motor Transport Section, and went to France in October 1918. Three of the brothers, Bert, Reg and Lloyd would not come home.  

His brother Bert had enlisted in 1909 as a drummer in the King’s Own.  He went with his battalion to India, returned to England in December 1914, and arrived on the Western Front in January 1915, as a Corporal.  He was severely wounded on 16th March 1915 while repairing trenches near Ypres, and died of his wounds in hospital at Bailleul on 23rd March 1915, aged 19.

Bert now rests in Bailleul Cemetery, Nord, where his epitaph reads, 

HIS ONLY FEAR WAS FEAR TO DO UNWORTHY THINGS

HIS WATCHWORD “DUTY” 

His eldest brother Ellis went to France as a Corporal on 23rd August 1914.  Ellis and John were both wounded in the retreat from Mons.  John was captured at Harcourt on 24th August 1914, severely wounded in the right thigh. He was held as a PoW until being repatriated in February 1918. 

Ellis served as Company Q.M.S.  He earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1917:  “For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He has performed consistent good work throughout the campaign and has at all times set a splendid example (13/2/1917)” 

Yet more tragedy befell the family with the loss of a third son. 

Lloyd achieved the rank of Sergeant, 2nd Bn K.O.R.L.  He suffered shell concussion and was hospitalised in Egypt in 1916.  After recuperating he was attached to the Egyptian Army. Lloyd died on 29th May 1917 in the Sudan, aged 24.

Lloyd is remembered on the Jerusalem Memorial, Israel. 

Lloyd’s death was announced in the Lancashire Evening Post on 31st May 1917:   

“Lancaster Ex-Soldier Loses Third Son:

Mr. Ellis Williams, Hanmer Place, Bowerham, Lancaster, who had 25 years’ service with the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, the author of several well-known soldier stories in prose and verse, has had the ill-fortune to lose a third son in the war.  He has today received news that his fourth son, Sergt. Lloyd Williams, who was serving with his father’s old regiment, the King’s Own, and attached to the headquarters staff at Khartoum, was drowned on the White Nile through the steamer on which he was travelling capsizing in a hurricane.  He was previously wounded in France, and invalided home through shell concussion.  He went out to Egypt and took part in the successful Darpur [Darfur] expedition, of which he sent home a description.   

Mr. Williams’ eldest [sic] son, Lance Corporal Reginald Williams, of the 17th Liverpool’s, was killed in action early in the war.  Corpl. Chas. Herbert (Bert) Williams was killed by a sniper while serving with the 2nd King’s Own.   Sergt. John Williams of the 2nd King’s Own, was badly wounded and made a prisoner in the retreat from Mons.  There are two yet serving their King, Company-Sergt.-Major William [Ellis] Williams, still in France, who was also wounded at Mons, and Percival (“Bobs”), serving with the Military Transport A.S.C.”

In May 1917 the stern wheel steamer “Amara” accompanied the expedition for the reconquest of the Sudan. On the 29^th whilst towing four barges ahead and none alongside, she turned turtle in a storm near Khor Galhak, 25 miles south of Renk, with great loss of life. She was returning from the Niger Expedition in the Southern Sudan to Khartoum, a notable casualty was Major Guy Thwaites, D.S.O., of the Egyptian Army.  

GUY THWAITES, D.S.O. 

His father received Reginald’s Army effects, and a War Gratuity £3.  Their parents received a pension for all three sons. 

His father died in 1922 aged 72, leaving effects of £2,542-0s-11d. 

In 1939 his mother is living alone at 28 Gloucester Avenue, Lancaster.  She died in 1943, aged 84. 

All three brothers are commemorated on the Bowerham School Memorial 

Reginald and Bert are commemorated on the Lancaster Memorial.

Grateful thanks are extended to Kevin Shannon the author of the book The Liverpool Rifles for providing details of Reginald's service with the 6th Rifles.  

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