| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
William was born just outside Northampton in 1881, one of thirteen children born to George Carter (1842-1900) and his wife Ann (1851-1926). By the mid-1880s the family had moved to Beverley where his father worked as a tanner’s labourer. William was brought up on Holme Church Lane and at Stanford’s Yard, Blucher Lane on Beckside.
In the 1911 census William was lodging with his sister Martha Ann (born 1873) at 26 Beckside. Martha was married to Charles William Nelson who worked as a ship repairer at the Beverley shipyard. At that time William was working as a labourer.
On 13 Aug 1914 William arrived in France with the 1st Battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment as part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
William’s army records are missing but given his army service number-1832-it would seem that he had either joined the regular army as a private after 1911 and was based at Portsmouth in 1914, or that before 1911 he has served as a regular with the 1st, then joined the reserve and had then been mobilised upon the outbreak of war on 4 Aug 1914. If the latter, it is possible that William may have served in India with the 1st.
The 1st went into France and were involved in the many actions following the retreat from Mons such as at Le Cateau, the Aisne and La Bassee in Sep and Oct 1914. Following the Battle of the Marne which stopped the German advance the 1st were sent to Belgium and were involved in “winter operations” in the Ypres area. It was there on 24 Feb 1915, in unknown circumstances, that William was killed, at the age of 34. He is buried in Hooge Crater Cemetery in Belgium.
He was awarded the 1914 Star and the War and Victory Medals. He is commemorated on the Beckside and Flemingate Street Shrine, the Hengate Memorial and the East Riding Memorial in the Beverley Minster.
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