P5/2549 CORPORAL WILLIAM GEORGE COLE
16TH (SERVICE) BATTALION, MIDDLESEX REGIMENT
(PUBLIC SCHOOLS)
KILLED IN ACTION
1ST JULY 1916
AGE 24 YEARS
William was the older brother of Leonard (see previous). He had been born in Halesworth in the third quarter of 1892. He was the third child and son of John and Catherine of London Road. After schooling, in 1906 he found work with W.H. Smith at their newspaper stand on Halesworth railway station where he must have been well thought of as by the time of the 1911 Census he was listed as boarding and working in Chelmsford, Essex. His profession was listed as a Station Bookseller.
Regarding William’s military service in the Great War, it is a very lucky situation in that his enlistment and service records remain courtesy of the National Archives. The likelihood of these still being available is very small as the vast majority of the records attributed to those soldiers who lost their lives were destroyed in the London Blitz during World War 2.
From information found within his service records, at the time of his enlistment on the 15th July 1915 we know that he had remained employed as a Bookstall Clerk and at that time was living and working at Brockley in South East London. Interestingly, instead of enlisting in his local recruiting office, he had travelled to Woldingham in Surrey to enlist into the 16th (Service) Battalion, Middlesex Regiment (Public Schools) who at that time were then in training. His reasoning for this is not known but it is possible he had a friend already serving with them. The reference to Public Schools in their title originated from the then Secretary of State for War Lord Kitchener’s, appeal for men to join what was titled a New Army that would consist of groups of friends, members of clubs and those from the same towns and districts to enlist together into what became known as ‘Pals’ Battalions’ of infantry and supporting arms such as Regiments of Artillery. On their formation, those who were raised as infantry battalions would then be affiliated to their local County Regiments. Formed in September 1914, the 16th Middlesex had originally recruited young men and older boys who had received a private education and no doubt came from a similar social background. As the war progressed, more of these initial recruits became casualties or were considered to be of the Officer Class and were then commissioned to serve in other Regiments. Their places were filled by men from right across the social divide. One such recruit was William, becoming PS2549, a Private soldier in the battalion. The 16th Middlesex landed at Boulogne on the 17th November 1915. William who had possibly been behind, with his training incomplete, having enlisted later, joined them on the 8th January 1916. He soon settled down to the life of a front-line infantryman as, within four months of joining his battalion, he had risen two ranks, becoming a Corporal.
The day of William’s death, 1st July 1916, would go down in the annals of British Military History as the most costly in the loss of human life and suffering in any single day, with a total of nineteen thousand, two hundred and forty men killed in action from a total of fifty-seven thousand, four hundred and seventy men listed as casualties. Now known as the first day of the Battle of the Somme, it involved on the British side many of the New Army Service Battalions that had been formed less than two years before taking part in their first major attack.
Prior to ‘Going Over The Top’ on that fateful day the German lines and strong points had been subjected to a full seven days of bombardment by the British Artillery who in that period fired over 1.5 million shells, the object being not only to neutralise and destroy the German defences but also to cut lanes through the many hundreds of miles of barbed wire that criss-crossed in front of their trenches.
William and his comrades of the 16th Middlesex were now part of the 86th Brigade of the 29th Division who were tasked with being a reserve Battalion. During the early hours they formed up in the support line in preparation to follow the main assault and deploy wherever they would be needed during the battle or to storm the German strongpoints around the French village of Beaumont-Hamel. They were eventually called forward at 7.40am and as they advanced over ‘No Man’s Land’ they witnessed the dead and dying men from the first wave, with many of them cut down around the small breaches made within the enemy’s barbed wire entanglements. It later transpired that up to one third of the British shells that had been fired during the pre-attack bombardment were of a shrapnel nature, which when fired against troops in the open proved to be devastating but when used against static targets or wire were of very little use. Many of those who were killed that day were caused by concentrated machine gun fire, from those weapons that had been hidden away from the British observers and had been brought forward to inflict carnage at the last moment.
Nothing is known regarding the circumstances of William’s death other than that he was one of the total of five hundred and twenty-four casualties that were recorded by the 16th Middlesex that day. Exactly one month later the Halesworth Times of the 1st August 1916 reported that William was missing in action. This was followed at the end of the year by an article in the Lambert Almanack for 1917 that also reported that Corporal W Cole had been missing in action ever since the 1st July. This would have been a very worrying situation for his parents, not knowing whether William had been killed or maybe had been made a prisoner of war. Their grief must have been further compounded a little over a year later when they heard that another of their five sons, Leonard, had met his end while fighting in Flanders. Sadly Leonard’s remains were never found, although William’s body was eventually and he was able to be identified and laid to rest in Beaumont-Hamel military cemetery. During the preparation of his headstone John and Catherine were asked if they would like a personal inscription added to the stone. They chose ‘HE GAVE HIS ALL’.
In August 1919 John received a gratuity of £6.19s.4d (£6.97p) paid for the life of his son.
As well as the gratuity he would also have been entitled to claim his son’s medal awards of the British War and Victory medal pair, the location of these is unknown. While his named memorial plaque and scroll remain in the care of his family, for whom we would like to thank for the images. (See below).
