Pte 51585 Edwin Taylor

• Age: 20
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Friday 22nd March 1918
• Commemorated at: Pozieres Memorial
  Panel Ref: P21-23

Edwin Taylor was born on the 10th January 1898 and was baptised on 10th April 1898 in Liverpool. He was the  eldest son of Edwin Taylor and Ann Margaret (née Graves). His father, a mariner from Manchester, and his mother, from Wigan, married in at St Mary's Church, Kirkdale in 1897 and had nine children, one of whom died young.  Edwin had younger siblings Albert, born in 1900, William Henry 1902, Ann Margaret 1904, Frank 1905, Elizabeth May 1908, George 1910, and James Edward, born in 1914. 

The 1901 Census finds the family living at 7 Wye Street, Everton with two children. His father, aged 29, is a sailor, his mother is aged 23. Edwin is 3. Also declared is Barbara Graves, 19, who is employed as a laundress. 

In November 1904, Edwin enrolled in St. Mary’s School, Kirkdale, the family then living at 8 Birch Terrace. He withdrew the following June to attend the Major Lester School.

By 1911 they are living at 55 Elias Street, Everton, with seven children.  His father, 39, is listed as a mariner, R.N.R., his mother is 33. They advise that they have been married for 14 years and have had 8 children, 7 of whom have survived and are declared on the Census. Edwin is 13 at school, Albert, 11 at school, William H. 8 at school, Ann Margaret 7 at school, Frank, 5, Elizabeth, 2, and George 5 months.   

His father had joined the Royal Naval Reserve in 1895 and re-enrolled in 1910.  His naval papers show that he served on various ships before the war, including the Campania, Carpathia, and Lusitania. One entry states “Wrecked at Newfoundland 20/12/1912.” 

On 20th December 1912 he was on board the cargo steamer S.S. Florence on a voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool, when at about 3 a.m. the ship hit rocks at Marine Cove, St. Mary’s Bay, Newfoundland (the area was known by the local fishermen as the Atlantic graveyard).  

The ship struck the rocks with considerable force well forward on the port side, the bottom plates were torn away and from the first the vessel was doomed.  The captain and crew reached the shore, but the perpendicular cliffs 250’ high at the water’s edge, the intense cold and rising sea forced them to return to the ship, still on the rocks, and spend the night on board.   

In heavy seas and a strong gale the vessel was pounded, the deck cargo was swept overboard, and the men had to lash themselves to the rigging. Distress rockets were sent up. The starboard lifeboat could not be launched as the ship was listing badly.   

The next day Second Mate Hedley and four men (including Edwin’s father, Able Seaman E. Taylor, age 41) put off in a lifeboat to seek a more favourable landing place, which they found two miles away.  Their boat capsized on beaching and Taylor and another man, Smithing,  were trapped underneath the boat and were only rescued with difficulty.  The two men were “nearly dead and it took over half an hour to restore animation”. 

After landing the boat, wind and sea increased and when darkness fell the men sought shelter in a fisherman’s hut, uninhabited but stocked with provisions.  The following day they returned to the steamer and found the ship had broken up and sunk in the night, with the loss of the Captain and 21 of her crew.  Many of the lost crew and three of the survivors were from Liverpool. 

In order to reach civilisation, the five survivors had to travel 14 miles over bogland submerged in three feet of melting snow, Taylor and Smithing being carried most of the way.  His father returned to his family in Liverpool on 12th January 1913 and continued his career at sea, including voyages to North America and Australia. 

He enlisted in Liverpool as Rifleman 4385 joining the 6th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment (Liverpool Rifles). He embarked aboard the SS Princess Victoria sailing from Folkestone-Boulogne on 15th July 1916, reaching the 24th Infantry Base Depot on 16th July. He proceeded to 11th Entrenching Battalion on 02nd August, and proceeded to 17th Battalion K.L.R. on 05th August. He was awarded 7 days field punishment No.1 for absence on 17th August and was posted from 05th September 1916 to 17th Battalion as Private No 51585. 

The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that Edwin served for 29 months, enlisting in September or October 1915. When he enlisted he would have been 17 years old.

His name appeared in the list of Wounded published in the Liverpool Post & Mercury on 16th November 1916 (when the battalion was in action during the Battle of the Somme).

He was serving in ‘D’ Company, 14th Platoon, Lewis Gun section when he was originally declared Missing on 22nd March 1918.  

Edwin has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial.

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.

He is also commemorated on the family headstone at Kirkdale cemetery 

His father Edwin received his Army effects and a War Gratuity of £13-10s.  His mother, 82 Opie Street, Liverpool, received a war pension. 

When war was declared his father was at Rangoon and joined H.M.S. Harding, a troop ship, at Bombay, served on H.M.S. Himalaya, and was invalided from the cruiser H.M.S. Minerva to R.N. Hospital Haslar in Gosport. He was discharged on 13/4/1917 with a Silver War Badge and a disability pension.

His father died in 1934, aged 62. 

In 1939 his widowed mother, 61, is living in Huyton with Roby at 1 Lordens Close, with his youngest brother James, 25.  His mother died in 1950, aged 72. 

Edwin is commemorated in the Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall, Panel 36.

Grateful thanks are extended to Kevin Shannon the author of the book The Liverpool Rifles for providing details of Edwin's service with the 6th Rifles.  
 

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