Stanley (Edward Stanley) Williams was born in June 1890. He was the eldest child of Charles and Margaret Williams. His father was a coach body maker, his mother was a dress maker and they lived on Upper Church Street in 1891. There were 8 children with 7 surviving into adulthood – Stanley, Joseph, Thomas, Oscar, Charles, Florence and Doris. Their father died in 1900. The children and their widowed mother moved soon afterwards to 40 Salop Road – their mother was working on her own account as a dressmaker and looking after her 7 children aged from Stanley at 10 years to Doris the youngest aged 2. By 1911 they had again moved, this time to 3 Middleton Road. Stanley was working as an upholsterer – he had served an apprenticeship with Messrs, Jones, Son and Gibbs. The other siblings, apart from the 2 youngest were also working – Joseph as a pastry cook, Thomas as a stout bottler assistant, Oscar as a gunsmith’s errand boy and Charles a butcher’s errand boy. Stanley was also a chorister at St Oswald’s Church, was a regular at ‘Miss Henry’s Bible Classes’ and a Sergeant and band master in the Church Lad’s Brigade.

He enlisted in September 1914 joining 6 Bn King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, Oswestry Pals. The battalion had arrived in France on 22 July 1915 and at the time of his death were engaged in ‘trench familiarisation and training’ accompanied by regular troops from the West Yorkshire Regiment. They were posted to a section of line to the south of Armentieres around Fleurbaix The battalion would go into the front line by company. The first to go was A coy, (in which was Stanley) plus a platoon from B coy. At 7.15pm on 10 August they left the relative safety of the bivouac for their first tour in the battle lines. At 5.15pm on 11 August, during a visit by officers from battalion HQ a demonstration of the trench mortars was given, The mortar section fired off 3 registering or ranging shots. The Germans retaliated and for the next twenty minutes a fire fight of artillery, grenades and mortars erupted.

During the engagement Stanley was seriously wounded in his left thigh and arm by an ‘egg’ bomb (rifle grenade). The grenade had bounced off the parapet and had then fallen behind him, had exploded and had wounded him in the left buttock and thigh. After the initial shock he was in good spirits even managing to laugh at his misfortune. He was attended to by RAMC medics who bound his wounds and was then stretchered to the rear support area and then by ambulance to 6 Casualty Clearing Station at Merville where he died of his wounds just after midnight. He is buried in Merville Communal Cemetery, his headstone reads ‘He died for his country’. He is also commemorated at St Oswald’s Church and Holy Trinity Church in Oswestry. CWGC gives his date of death as 13 August – other sources state he was wounded on 11 August and died ‘after midnight’ i.e. on 12 August 1915. According to the Regimental History he was the first casualty in the 6 Bn KSLI – he lived next door (3 Middleton Road) to Sergeant Henry Tudor – the first casualty in 4 Bn KSLI.

Acknowledgements.

References and Sources

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