Corporal 113457 Eric William Peirce

• Age: 21
• From: Rivington
• Regiment: ROYAL ENGINEERS
• Died on Saturday 1st July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: Pier & Face 8A & 8D

Eric William Peirce was born in late 1894 in Rivington, Lancashire, northwest of Bolton on Rivington Reservoir. He was the only son of William Peirce and his wife Maggie Helen (née Thompson). His father, born in Harrington, Cumberland, the son of a Master Mariner, had joined the Merchant Navy as an indentured apprentice in 1876 at age 15 for four years. He became a 2nd Mate in 1882, 1st Mate in 1884, aged 24, and received his Master Mariner certificate in 1887. His mother Maggie was born in Scotland, the daughter of a Unitarian Minister, a British subject born in Montreal. 

His parents married in Rivington in 1891 and had two children; a daughter Olive Margaret was born in 1900.

At the time of the 1901 census his parents, with Eric and Olive, are living with his widowed maternal grandfather Samuel Thompson, 66, Unitarian Minister, in Chapel House, Rivington, where they have a domestic servant.  His father, 40, is a Master Mariner, his mother is 33, Eric 6 and Olive 1.

His mother died in the summer of 1910 at the age of 42, when Eric was 15.

Eric attended Balshaw’s Grammar School in Leyland, about 8 miles northwest of Rivington. Prize day at Balshaw’s was reported in the Lancashire Daily Post on 23rd December 1910; Eric’s name was listed amongst the pupils who had passed the Oxford Local Examinations (Seniors).

In 1911 Eric and Olive are still in Chapel House with their grandfather Samuel Thompson, 76, now retired, and a housekeeper.  Eric is 16 and Olive, 11, both at school.  His father is away at sea.

Eric enlisted in Liverpool soon after war was declared as Private 16263, 18th Bn. King’s Liverpool Regiment.  At some point he was transferred to the 5th Bn, Special Brigade of the Royal Engineers.

As early as 3rd May 1915 the British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, authorised the preparation of measures to retaliate against the German use of poison gas. Volunteers with a knowledge of chemistry were sought among universities and colleges at home, as well as from the ranks of the BEF, with immediate promotion to Chemist Corporal.

Special Companies of technically skilled men, under Major C.H. Foulkes of the Royal Engineers, were formed with a Depot at Helfaut, to deal with the new weapon.  Nos. 186 and 187 Special Companies were formed first, in July 1915, followed by Nos.188 and 189 Companies in August.

One of the first acts of Sir Douglas Haig on his appointment as Commander-in-Chief was to request that the War Office expand the four Special Companies of the RE into a more substantial force, viz.

• Four Special Battalions, each of four Companies, to handle gas discharge from cylinders;
• Four Special Companies to handle gas shells fired from Stokes mortars, each Company to have 48 such weapons;
• Four Special Sections to handle flame throwers;
• Headquarters and Depot, making in all an establishment of 208 officers and 5,306 men.

No. 5 Battalion was the Stokes mortar unit, and had three Companies attached to Fourth Army and one to Third Army.  They were equipped with the 4" Stokes mortar which fired phosgene, smoke, Thermite (known then as thermit) and teargas-filled ammunition.

William disembarked in France on 14th September 1915 with the R.E.  His battalion took part in the capture of Mametz, from 01st to 05th July 1916 during the first days of the Battle of the Somme.  The preliminary bombardment in this sector was successful, the enemy artillery having been practically obliterated.

At 7.22 a.m. on 1st July, batteries of Stokes mortars opened fire and local commanders ordered the release of gas on the centre of the front facing Fricourt that was not initially being attacked. Four minutes later No. 5 Battalion of the Special Brigade of Royal Engineers launched a discharge of smoke on the flanks of both 7th and 21st Divisions.

Eric was killed in action on 01st July 1916 aged 21. This of course was the fateful opening day of the Battle of the Somme. Eric having joined the 18th Battalion of THe King's Liverpool Regiment at the start of the Pals recruitment will have been friends with many of the Liverpool Pals killed in the attack at Montauban. The 18th Bn lost 194 men killed in action on that day. 
He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

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.”

On the first anniversary of his death, his family placed a notice in the Liverpool Echo:

“In proud and loving memory of Corporal Eric Peirce, K.L.R. (Pals), attached R.E., killed in action July 1, 1916, son of Captain Peirce and beloved grandson of the Rev. S. Thompson, Rivington.”

On the second anniversary in 1918:

“In ever loving memory of Corpl. Eric Wm. Peirce, killed in action June [sic] 1, 1916, only son of Capt. and the late Mrs. Peirce and grandson of the Rev. Samuel Thompson of Rivington.”

Eric William earned his three medals.

His father earned Merchant Marine medals for service during the war.

His father received Eric's Army effects; whilst the War Gratuity of £9-10s went to his sister Olive. 

The pension card in the name of his sister Olive, at 30 Windsor Street, Edinburgh, age 19, appears to show that a pension was refused on 21st January 1920.  It is not known if his father had died by this time; no death or burial record has been found.  

His grandfather died in 1920, at the age of 85.  There is a memorial in Rivington Unitarian Chapel that reads;

"In affectionate memory of Rev Samuel Thompson, the faithful minister of this chapel, from January 1st 1881 to July 1st 1909, he being dead yet speaketh".

His sister Olive trained as a nurse and worked in the Edmund Potter Hospital, Bolton, then Chalmers Hospital and City Hospital, in Edinburgh.  She married in Edinburgh in 1926 and in 1951 was living in Falkirk.

Eric William is commemorated on the following Memorials:

Rivington and Village Club Memorial

Balshaw’s Grammar School, Leyland

The Balshaw school website records:

"Speech Day in 1919 was a sad occasion, when the School Captain read the list of those who had fallen at the front, 23 out of 175 who fought was the number of their generation to die. The reading out of the names of those boys who died in the war became traditional at Armistice Day service for many years to come.” 

We currently have no further information on Eric William Peirce, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.