Pte 52041 William Henry Williams

William Henry was born on 10th February 1897, the youngest son of James Williams and his wife Harriet (née Whittaker). His father, from Manchester, and his mother from Liverpool, married in 1874 and had 11 children, of which William was the youngest.  His siblings found on censuses include James, Joseph, George, Harriet, and John.

 

William was baptised in St. Mary Magdalene Church, Liverpool, on 21st March 1897, his parents’ residence given as 94 Devon Street, and his father’s occupation listed as plasterer.

 

In 1901 they are living at 94 Devon Street, Islington, Liverpool, with five children at home.  His father is 49, a plasterer’s labourer.  Joseph is 22, George 18, Harriet 16, John, 13, and William is 4.  They have a boarder, Peter Ashton, 24.

 

In 1911 William is the only child living at home with his parents at 14 Holborn Street, Low Hill. His father is 59, a plasterer’s labourer, his mother is 57, William is 14, working as a barber’s shop lad.  They have a 22-year old boarder, Frederick Roberts.  They state that six of their eleven children are still living. 

 

His mother died in January 1915, aged 61, living at 14 Holborn Street.

 

William enlisted in Liverpool in the 1/9th Bn, King’s Liverpool Regiment, as Private 4591. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for nearly two and a half years, enlisting in about September 1915, when he would have been 18 years old.

 

At some point he was transferred to the 19th (Pals) Bn K.L.R., with the regimental number 52041, serving in B Company, 8th Platoon.

 

William was initially declared Missing between 22nd-30th March 1918, before he was officially recorded as killed in action on the 30th March 1918 during the German Spring Offensive. .

 

His name appeared in the list of Missing published in the Weekly Casualty List on 4th June 1918.

 

His CWGC record now gives date of death between 22nd-30th March 1918 having been initially recorded as killed in action on 30th March 1918.

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March.

William Henry 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 family made enquiries with the British Red Cross on 2nd August 1918 and again on 20th November 1918 in hopes that William had been taken prisoner. 

 

His documents were received in the pension office on 04th October 1918, perhaps giving an indication of when he was officially declared killed in action.

 

William’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £13-10s, went to his father James.  The pension card in the name of his father, at 10 Boundary Lane, West Derby Road, Liverpool, shows that a pension was refused.  (However, in many cases of missing soldiers, a pension was later awarded.)

 

His father died in 1921, aged 68.

 

William is remembered on his parents’ headstone in West Derby Cemetery -