| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Walter Bentley was born in Kilnwick on 4 Feb 1890. He was the youngest of eleven children born to Thomas Bentley and Emily Horsley who had married in 1875. Thomas was from Kilnwick whilst Eliza was from Sherburn where the family lived until the mid 1880s whereupon they returned to Kilnwick. Walter worked as a farm labourer, however Walter opted to seek work in Canada. In early Apr 1911 he left Liverpool on board the SS Great Britain for St Johns, Newfoundland, from where he travelled to Manitoba to work as a farm labourer.
Walter enlisted on 18 Dec 1914. He had already served in the militia for a year. He joined the 45th Battalion (Manitoba) of the Canadian Expeditionary Force as a private. The 45th were an infantry battalion and embarked for Britain on 1 Apr 1916. The 45th provided reinforcements to the Canadian Corps in the field until it was disbanded in Jul 1917. Walter would have seen action in France and possibly in Belgium at Passchendaele where the CEF were heavily involved.
After the war Walter returned to Manitoba to resume his occupation as a farm worker. He married Mary Sillen on 16 December1933 at the Mission Church in Manitoba.They lived in Clanwilliam in western Manitoba where Walter died in 1944. Mary died in 1968.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |