BORN – Oswestry
HOMEFRONT – Place / Occupation(Railway) / Holy Trinity Church
JOB – Engine Fireman and Stoker
UNIT – 6 Bn King’s Shrophire Light Infantry
RANK – Private 15749
THEATRE – Ypres / La Belle Alliance. 6 Bn King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. February – April 1916.
DIED – KIA 10 March 1916. Aged 38
BURIED – Menin Road South Military Cemetery. (CWGC)
William Henry Lewis was born in 1878 at Oswestry. He was the youngest of 6 children with elder siblings Charles, Richard, John, Mary and Frank. His father, also Frank, worked as a cast maker in the Cambrian Railway works; he died in 1883. William’s mother was Jane. The family lived at 4 Rope Walk, Oswestry. In 1898 his mother died and in 1901 William was working as a stockman at West Felton. However, by 1911 he was working for the Railway as an engine fireman and stoker. He was boarding with his brother Richard and his wife Joanna and their 3 children. They lived at 25 Gittins Street.
He enlisted at Oswestry in August 1914– joining 6 Bn King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and was one of the ‘Oswestry Pals’. At that time he was living at Knutsford, probably boarding with his brother Charles who was living on Toft Road, Knutsford. He went over to France on 31 December 1915. At the time of his death the battalion were operating in the Ypres Salient with companies detailed to working parties with 177 Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers.
In his last letter home to his brothers and sisters, written when the battalion was in billets at Poperinghe on 27 February 1916, he wrote: ‘We have lost a lot of lads that came out with me. I haven’t seen Gardener for 2 weeks. Tell George Thompson I saw his son Jack. He is alright and looks well. I should like to find Percy Phillips‘ grave. He was buried where we now are but there are so many all over the place and those that have money and come out here after the war will see some sights’. This mention of ‘tourism’ seems insightful. Today, tourism is a mainstay of the local economies around the battlefields and it was Thomas Cook & Son which organised the first ‘battlefield tour’ in 1919. He goes on ‘…they say the Germans are bringing up bigger guns on our front. I wish it was all over. It is awful. We have had a lot of snow here, it has been snowing all the week and it must be very bad in the trenches’.
William is buried in Menin Road South Military Cemetery. He was 38 years old. His headstone reads – ‘He gave his life that we might live’ – chosen by his brother . William is also commemorated on the Cambrian Railway Memorial in Cae Glas Park, Oswestry and at Holy Trinity Church, Oswestry.
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