L/Cpl 330704 William Cross

In 1911 Fanny Barnett, age 30, is living at 108 White Rock Street, with her husband and daughter Amy, age 5, and a number of in-laws.  Also in the household is James Cross, nephew, age 23, born in Liverpool, employed as a warehouseman.  Fanny’s maiden name was Lewis.  James was living with the Lewis family in 1901, as a 13-year old cousin, at 44 Alma Street, Everton.  It is not clear who James’ parents were.

 

Fanny had an older sister, Isabella, who married James Cross in 1889.  They had a son William, born in 1894.  He was baptised on 22nd April 1894 in St. Augustine, Everton, his parents’ residence given as 44 Alma Street, and his father’s occupation listed as guard. He had an older brother Robert, and younger siblings Adah, Florence, Albert, Harold, May, and Frances.

 

In 1901 the family, with six children, is living at 1 Westbourne Street, Everton.  William is 7.  His parents are both 32, his father’s occupation wire repairer, telephone.  

 

Another son Sidney was born in 1902 but died at the age of 3 weeks, followed by May in 1903 and Frances in 1904.  George was born in 1906 but died at 2 months.

 

When William was 13, in 1907, his mother Isabella died, aged 38, living at 2 Richard Street.  She was buried in a public grave.  His father remarried in 1908 to Gertrude Peet.  In 1911 his father and Gertie, with William’s younger brothers Albert and Harold, are living at 23 Moira Street.  His sisters Adah and Florence had been sent to Canada in 1910 under the Dr. Barnardo scheme.  Younger daughters May and Frances were boarded out in Brackley, Northamptonshire, where they are found in 1911, ages 7 and 6.

 

In 1911 a William Cross, age 19, is a boarder in a lodging house, occupation newspaper seller.  This age does not match his baptism age (he would have been 17) but census records are notoriously unreliable as regards ages.  However, the fact that he is a newspaper seller is significant. 

 

William Cross, born in Everton, with father James and a brother James (addresses unknown) enlisted in Liverpool for six years’ service in the Army Reserve, on 24th February 1914 in the 3rd Bn South Lancs Regiment (Prince of Wales’ Volunteers), as Private 1879.  He gives his age as 20 years and 334 days, and his occupation as casual labourer.  He is described as being 5’ 9 and one eighth inches tall, weighing 149 lbs, with a fresh complexion, light blue eyes and auburn hair. He has good physical development, acne on his face and deformity of left index finger.   

 

His employer, Arthur (?)ell, vouched for William’s good character, stating that he had worked as a news vendor for five years, and was leaving at his own request.  He is described  as a “respectable looking youth”.

 

He was appointed Lance Corporal on 27th April 1914, and completed five months’ training on 18th July.  After war was declared he was mobilised at Warrington on 6th August, but discharged two days later, “Found temporary unfit on mobilisation and dismissed to his home.”

 

Not long afterwards, William enlisted in Liverpool in the 1/9th Bn King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private 2770.  The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for 40 months, enlisting in about November 1914. 

 

He shipped to France with his battalion on 12th March 1915.  At some point he was transferred and posted to the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment . He was serving as Lance-Corporal No 330704 when he was killed in action on the 30^th March 1918 during the German Spring Offensive.  William would have turned 24 years old just days after the Spring Offensive began on 21st March.

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 was one of sixteen British soldiers, identified by their uniform buttons, buried in a mass grave.  Later, when the bodies were removed, William was the only one to be identified by his disc.  One other was identified as a Manchester Regiment soldier, the 14 others remain Unknown.

William is commemorated in Savy British Cemetery, France, where a Special Kipling Memorial reads:

“To the Memory of these 68 British Soldiers who were killed in action in March 1918 and buried at the time in the German Cemetery on the St. Quentin - Roupy Road, whose graves are now lost.”

Savy was taken by the 32nd Division on the 1st April 1917, after hard fighting, and Savy Wood on the 2nd. On the 21st March 1918 Savy and Roupy were successfully defended by the 30th Division, but the line was withdrawn after nightfall. The village and the wood were retaken on the 17th September 1918 by the 34th French Division, fighting on the right of the British IX Corps.

Savy British Cemetery was made in 1919, and the graves from the battlefields and from the following small cemeteries in the neighbourhood were concentrated into it.

There are now over 850, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, more than half are unidentified. Memorials are erected in the cemetery to 68 soldiers (chiefly of the 19th King's Liverpools and the 17th Manchesters), buried by the Germans in their cemetery on the St. Quentin-Roupy road, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.

The Cemetery covers an area of 2,555 square metres and is enclosed by a low rubble wall.

William earned his three medals.  His 1914-1915 Star was returned when it was issued in 1920 (which usually happened when the next of kin could not be traced), but there is no such notation on the medal roll for his British War Medal and Victory Medal, issued in 1921.

His brother James and aunt Fanny Barnett received Williams’ Army effects and a War Gratuity of £20. No pension card has been found, probably because William had no dependants. 

 

Sadly, William has not been found on any memorials.