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Quorn WW1 Roll of Honour - William Hallam
Died 22nd October 1914, aged 29
Rue du Bois, France
The first to die
The first Quorn soldier to die in WW1 was William Hallam. William’s family had lived in Quorn for generations and the 1911 census shows him living with his parents, William and Ursula Hallam at 60 Barrow Road (Hillyard Cottages). He was one of six children, although one sister had died aged five.
William first joined the Leicestershire Regiment as a regular soldier in May 1903, when he had only just turned 18. Up to that point he had been working as a gardener.
Although no photograph of William has been traced, his attestation papers record that he was 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighed 10 ½ stones and had dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He served for eight years before leaving the Army in 1911, but although he had left, he was then classed as a reservist, and was therefore one of the first to rejoin when war broke out in August 1914. In May 1914, only two months prior to rejoining his regiment, William had married Christina Mabel Savery in St Bartholomew’s Church. She was a domestic servant and he had been doing labouring work.
Sadly, only five months after that happy day, news came that 29 year old William had died on 22nd October 1914, in the trenches in Belgium. William’s body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial, South of Ypres.
The remains of a life
In February 1915, Christina received a bleak little parcel containing William’s possessions. These consisted of 7 ½ French francs, four letters, one photograph and a few postcards.
Army papers still exist, showing that Christina was awarded a pension of 12/6d (62p) per week.
The couple didn’t have any children and Christina never remarried. She died in Leicester in 1972 aged 93, having been a widow for nearly sixty years.
Ursula, William’s mother, must have been grief stricken too, but her losses were not over, and less than seven months after losing William, her 62 year old husband (also called William), died. She must have lived in fear for the safe return of her remaining three sons, especially as the war dragged from months into years, but fortunately they survived.
The photograph shows Hillyard Cottages on Barrow Road in the early 1900s. Number 60, where William was living with his parents in 1911, is third from the left.
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Missing information: |
Can anyone provide a photograph of William Hallam?
Please email us at:
team2024@quornmuseum.com |
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Submitted on: |
2020-01-13 |
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Submitted by: |
Sue Templeman |
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Artefact ID: |
2310 |
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Artefact URL: |
www.quornmuseum.com/display.php?id=2310 |
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Print: |
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