Pte 36933 William Forster

They appear to have moved to Liverpool in 1890 and Thomas was born in Toxteth Park in February 1891 at 13 Collins Street Toxteth Park, Liverpool.
 

The Census of 1891 shows William, aged 8 is living with his parents and two brothers at 13 Collins Street, Toxteth Park. 

His father is a 38 year old general labourer, whilst his mother, Ellen, is aged 36. His brothers are recorded as; Edward aged 6 and born in Ireland and Thomas aged 2 months. There is also a lodger living at the property. 

 

By the time of the April Census in 1901 the family has moved to 39 Collins Street, Toxteth Park, Liverpool.

William is now aged 18 and a pawnbroker's assistant, he lives with both parents and his two brothers. His father is now shown as being 47 years old and employed as a joiner, whilst his mother is shown as being 45 years of age. His brother Edward is now 16 and working as a cooper, and Thomas is now aged 10.  

 

His father died in 1903 and was buried on the 11th January in Toxteth Cemetery aged 47, address 39 Collins St. 

 

The April Census 1911 shows William aged 29 and a pawnbroker salesman living with his 55 year old, widowed mother, and brothers Edward and Thomas at 18 High Park Street, Toxteth, Liverpool. Edward is now 27 and a machinist, whilst Thomas is now 20 and is a lamplighter. His mother advised that she had been married for 29 years and had five children, three of whom had survived. The census reveals in detail where they were born; Mother was born at Clonskeagh, Co.Dublin, William was born at 14 Anna Villa, Dublin, Edward was born at 19 Sandford Ave, Dublin, Thomas was born at 13 Collins St, Liverpool.  

He enlisted in Liverpool, when aged 32 and was serving in the 20^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 36933 when he was killed in action on the 9^th April 1917 during the Battle of Arras.

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded. 

William's body was not recovered from the battlefield or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Memorial in France.  

The ARRAS MEMORIAL commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918, the eve of the Advance to Victory, and have no known grave. The most conspicuous events of this period were the Arras offensive of April-May 1917, and the German attack in the spring of 1918. Canadian and Australian servicemen killed in these operations are commemorated by memorials at Vimy and Villers-Bretonneux. A separate memorial remembers those killed in the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. Both cemetery and memorial were designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, with sculpture by Sir William Reid Dick. The memorial was unveiled by Lord Trenchard, Marshal of the Royal Air Force on the 31 July 1932 (originally it had been scheduled for 15 May, but due to the sudden death of French President Doumer, as a mark of respect, the ceremony was postponed until July).

 

Liverpool Echo 3rd July 1917

FORSTER - April 9, killed in action, Private William Forster, eldest son of Ellen and the late Francis Forster, 18 High Park Street (previous to joining, in the employee of Mr F. Cookson, pawnbroker, Old Swan.)

 

His soldiers effects were sent to his mother Ellen and brother Edward and pension to mother Ellen.  

William is recorded on Ireland's Roll of Honour.

 

Mother died in 1935 aged 80.

 

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