William McGanity was born in Liverpool on 04th March 1897, the son of John McGanity and his wife Mary (née Moran). John, from Downpatrick, Ireland, and Mary, from Ormskirk, married in St. Anne’s R.C. Church, Liverpool in 1890 and had seven children. William was baptised at St Clare's Church in Liverpool on 21st March 1897. He had older siblings Jane, John, and James, and younger brothers Henry, Frederick, and Leonard, all born in Liverpool.  

 

In 1901 the family is living at 117 Cambridge Street, Wavertree, with five children. His father, 50, is a stoker in a gas company, his mother is 37, William is 4.

His father died in the March quarter of 1908 aged 56.

 

By 1911 his widowed mother,  is aged 46, and a ‘factory girl’ in a cable works, is head of household at 20 Cardigan Street, Wavertree. Jane, 19, is at home, John, 18, is a shop porter,  James, 17, and William, 14, are employed as shop boys, Henry is 12, Frederick 10, and Leonard is 7.

 

His mother died in April 1914, aged 48.

 

William enlisted in Liverpool in the 14th Bn King’s (Liverpool) Regiment as Private 11490. His service record has not survived, so the details are not known, but based on the amount of the War Gratuity, he enlisted in 1914, when he would have been 17 years old.  The battalion trained in Eastbourne and Seaford, and shipped to France on 5th September 1915. They entrained for Marseilles and from there embarked in October for Salonika. They fought in the Battles of Horseshoe Hill and Machukovo in 1916, and at Doiran in 1917.  They moved to the Western Front in June 1918, via Itea in Greece and Taranto, Italy, and were absorbed by the 18th Bn K.L.R. in August, becoming the 18th (Lancashire Hussars), The King’s (Liverpool Regiment). 

 

The 100 Days Offensive, the Allied push that would eventually bring the war to an end, begins in August, and by early October the 18th Bn arrives at the Hindenburg Line in the region of Bony.  The Allies pursue the retreating German Army and on 8th November 1918, in what would be their last engagement of the war, the 18th Bn attacks the Germans near Marbaix. 

At the time of his death, warfare had become mobile, with the British Army harrying the Germans, who would retreat to a position, fight, then retreat once more. The day before he was killed the Battalion had just marched from Mariollers to Marbaix in France, when it was ordered to take a position in the line near Marbaix, from the 1/5th Gloucestershire Regiment. On the following day, 8th November an attack was commenced at 07.30am supported by the 100th Battalion Machine Gun Corps and artillery fire. Despite their support, the advancing troops encountered fierce rifle and machine gun fire from the German position’s. Although the attack was eventually successful, two more officers and thirty six other ranks were to be wounded, and fourteen other ranks Killed, only three days before the Armistice.

William was one of those 14 men referred to as killed in action, three days before the Armistice. He was 21 years of age.

He was buried near to where he fell and after the war, when graves were concentrated, his body was removed and reburied in Dourlers Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France, where he now rests.

Dourlers village was in German hands during almost the whole of the First World War. It was taken on 07th November 1918, after heavy fighting, by the 6th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and the 1st K.O.Y.L.I. The communal cemetery was used by the Germans during the war, but in November 1918, a small extension was made by Commonwealth troops at the west end. After the Armistice, the German graves from the communal cemetery and others from the battlefields, together with Commonwealth graves from isolated positions and small cemeteries, were brought into the extension which contains 161 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 14 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to four casualties known or believed to be buried among them. The extension also contains 108 German burials, 62 of which are unidentified.

CWGC shows his next of kin as his eldest brother John, of 32 Whithorn Street, Webster Road, Wavertree, Liverpool.

 

William’s name appeared in the list of Killed in the Weekly Casualty List on 31st December 1918: McGanity 11490 L-Cpl. W. (Liverpool).  The medal roll also shows William with the rank of Lance Corporal, as does the CWGC graves concentration burial return, but his headstone, pension card, and Soldiers’ Effects show the rank of Private.

 

A pension card was issued in the name of his sister Jane, at 21 Corsewell Street, Edge Hill, Wavertree, Liverpool, but appears to show that a pension was refused. 

 

William’s effects of £27-2s-4d and a War Gratuity of £24-10s went to his siblings Jane, James, Frederick, and Leonard. 

 

Sadly, William has not been found on any memorial.

 

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