| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
William Fletcher a tanners’ labourer from Beverley was commissioned as an officer in the British Army in WW1. He was born in Beverley the 16 Feb 1894 and baptised 22 Mar 1894 at St Nicholas’ Church. He was one of eight children born to Joseph Fletcher and his wife Harriet both of whom were from York. Joseph was a tanners’ labourer. The family having lived variously in Flemingate, Trinity Lane and Bogle Lane were recorded in the 1901 census at New Villas, Chantry Lane. They later moved to Queensgate Road and then 17 Sloe Lane. William, like his brother, Alfred also went to work in one of the local tanneries.
Information on William’s army service is patchy. He joined the 13th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment, the 4th Hull Pals Battalion, commonly referred to as “T’Others” as they were not formed from a particular occupational group. His service number 13/997 indicates he was probably not one of the earliest recruits raised in late 1914 and but probably enlisted the following year. The 13th went to Egypt in late Dec 1915 to guard the Suez Canal against Turkish attack but in Mar 1916 were transferred to France. William seems to have reached the rank of sergeant relatively quickly and was probably involved in the bloody actions at Serre on the Somme in Nov 1916 and at Oppy Wood in the Battle of Arras in early May 1917. In Nov 1917 he was commissioned and became a second-lieutenant in the 4th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. On 31 Mar 1918 he was badly wounded in the left arm and hospitalised in the UK at Oxford. His regiment was in retreat on 31 Mar 1918 to the south east of Amiens en route from Boves to Sains-en-Amienois when he was wounded in unknown circumstances. It is not clear whether he returned to front line service or whether he qualified for a silver badge as unfit for further service. He was however awarded the 1914-15 Star and the war and Victory Medals.
On his return to Beverley, where he lived at 18 North Bar Without, he married in early 1920 to Elsie Florence Jones, born in Liverpool 1895. They had three children, Alexander born 1921, Kenneth born 1923 and Brian born 1930. The family later moved to Abingdon in Berkshire where William worked as a “general stores dealer”. He died in Bicester in Oxfordshire on 20 Dec 1979.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |