When William was three years old, in 1885, his mother died at the age of 29. His father remarried in 1886 to Harriett Green (who had a son Frank) and they had two children; Ada and Archibald.

 

In 1891 the family are living at 7 Green Lane, Evington, Leicester.  His father is a warehouseman.  His sister Clara is 13, William and Frank Green are both 9, and half sister Ada is 4.

 

His sister Clara died in 1896, at the age of 18.

 

By 1901 the family have moved to 2a Frank Street, Leicester, with William, Frank, Ada and Archibald. His father is a boot manufacturer’s manager.  William is 19, a boot warehouseman.

 

The 1911 Census finds the family living at 21 St. Stephen’s Road, Leicester.  His father, 69, is a self-employed agent in the boot trade, Harriett is 52, William is 29, a finisher in the boot trade. Ada, 24, helps at home, and Archibald, 13, is a chemist’s errand boy.  They have two boarders.

 

His father died in 1913, age 71.

William enlisted in Leicester and was originally serving as Private 22345, 11th Battalion, Leicester Regiment. This battalion was formed in October 1915 and landed in France at Le Havre at the end of March 1916. They were issued sheepskin coats, gloves and felt socks, and entrained for Hazebrouck on the Belgian border. On 1 April 1916  they came under orders of the 6th Division as a Pioneer Battalion (Midland Pioneers).  The battalion remained at Esquelbec and at Camp ‘F’ at Houtkerque from April to June, engaged in road building and repair and trench work. The battalion diary reports occasional casualties from wounds and accidents.  

 

William’s name appeared in the list of wounded published in the Leicester Journal on 30th June 1916. He was transferred, probably after recuperating from his wounds, as his medal roll shows him serving as as Private No 53066 in the 20th Battalion The King’s Liverpool Regiment. He was later posted to the 19th Bn, likely when the 20th was disbanded in February 1918.

William was engaged to be married and his fiancée was informed that he was Missing since 22nd March 1918.  Miss Lizzie Osborne, living at 62 Asfordby Street, North Evington, Leicester, contacted the International Red Cross but was notified in a reply dated 09th July 1918 that they held no records for William.  (Lizzie lived at this address with her family in 1911; she was 22, and working in the shoe trade).

William's death was later assumed, for official purposes, as having occurred on 30th March 1918. He was 36 years of age.

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March. 

William has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.

Lizzie received William’s Army effects and a War Gratuity of £14.  

 

His half brother Archibald joined the 12th Bn Leicester Regiment in 1916 when he was 18, arrived in France at the end of July, and was reported wounded and missing on 29th September 1916.  He was 19.  He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing, Somme.

Just weeks later, William's step mother Harriett, the only mother he ever knew, died in December 1916 aged 60.

 

His half sister Emma’s son, Leonard Wood, served in the Yorks & Lancs, and was killed in action on 17th January 1917.  He is also commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Misisng of the Somme.

 

Lizzie married in late 1919 and had a son.  She died in 1975, age 77.

 

William is commemorated on the Bridge Road School Memorial, Leicester.

 

We currently have no further information on William Gladstone Herring. If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.