| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
William was born in Beverley the 3 Jun 1886 and baptised at Beverley Minster on 1 Oct 1886, one of five children born to Frederick Carter (1846-1916) and his wife Mary (1854-1914). Frederick was a tanner from Camberwell, London; after his marriage in 1879 the family moved to Beverley where he was employed as a tanner’s labourer.
The family lived in Providence Row, Wilbert Lane; 23 Minstermoorgate and 59 Holme Church Lane. William became a regular soldier, recorded in the 1911 census as stationed at Fulford Barracks, York. William was a private in the 2nd Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment.
William served in the 9th Battalion of the Yorkshires and then the 11th, he arrived in France on 26 Aug 1915 and he rose to the rank of acting-sergeant. The 9th went into action in the Battle of Loos in the autumn of 1915, later going into the Arras sector. In the Battle of the Somme in 1916 they were in action at Albert, Pozieres, Flers-Courcelette, Morval and Le Transloy. In 1917 they were at Messines and Passchendaele in Belgium before going to the Italian Front. At an unknown point William switched to the 23rd Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers (4th Tyneside Scottish). They suffered heavy casualties in May 1918 in the German offensive on the Lys in northern France. William was discharged from the army in January 1919 with a pension. He was awarded the 1915 Star and the War and Victory Medals.
After the war William lived with his married sister, Florence Cawthorpe and her family at 59 Holme Church Lane. He was unmarried. The 1939 Register notes that he was “incapacitated” and not working. He died in 1947 aged 61. He is remembered on the Holme Church Lane Street Shrine. |