Pte 33137 William Henry Swift

 

In 1901 his parents are living at 16 Wellington Road, Wavertree. His parents are both 32, his father is a general labourer; William, the only child, is 4.

 

In 1905 they lived at 29 Every Street.

 

By 1911 they have moved to 37 Berwick Street,  Kensington, Liverpool. His father is 43, a general labourer in a second hand yard, his mother is 43, William is 14, and has left school but is not employed, Edward is 8, Alice 4, and Arthur 7 months.  They are living in five rooms and have nine boarders, Sarah Jane Thomas, and the Sumner and Fazackerley families.

 

He enlisted in Liverpool and was posted to the 18th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 24725. He subsequently transferred to the 21st (Reserve) battalion before rejoining the 18th. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for 21 months, enlisting in about June 1915, when he was 18 years old.

William then transferred to the 11th Battalion of the Border Regiment as Private 33137 and was killed in action on 01st April 1917, aged 20.

He now rests at Savy British Cemetery in France.

Savy was taken by the 32nd Division on the 01st April 1917, after hard fighting, and Savy Wood on the 02nd. On the 21st March 1918 Savy and Roupy were successfully defended by the 30th Division, but the line was withdrawn after nightfall. The village and the wood were retaken on the 17th September 1918 by the 34th French Division, fighting on the right of the British IX Corps. 

Savy British Cemetery was made in 1919, and the graves from the battlefields and from other small cemeteries in the neighbourhood. 

There are now over 850, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, more than half are unidentified. Memorials are erected in the cemetery to 68 soldiers (chiefly of the 19th King's Liverpools and the 17th Manchesters), buried by the Germans in their cemetery on the St. Quentin-Roupy road, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. 

The Cemetery covers an area of 2,555 square metres and is enclosed by a low rubble wall.

William's death was reported in the Liverpool Echo on 17th April 1917: 

SWIFT - April 1, killed in action, Private W. Swift (B.R.), eldest son of Mr and Mrs Swift, 16 Proctor Terrace, West Derby Road.

 

The pension card does not show Missing in action, nor does Soldiers’ Effects show his date of death was presumed, but his family made enquiries with the British Red Cross on 20th July 1917. 

 

His father, then living at 16 Proctor Terrace, West Derby Road, received William’s Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £9-10s, and his mother Elizabeth, an Army pension.

 

His medal index card shows application for medals 21st June 1921.

 

William is commemorated on the following memorials -

St. Anne’s Church of England Primary School

St. Philip and St. David’s Church, Newsham Park

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall on Panel 40.