Name
William Newnham
1881
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
20/07/1917
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
201321
Bedfordshire Regiment
5th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
JERUSALEM MEMORIAL
Panel 17
Israel and Palestine (including Gaza)
Headstone Inscription
He has no Headstone. He is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial, Israel and Palestine (Including Gaza).
UK & Other Memorials
Goffs Oak Village Memorial, Cheshunt Town Memorial, Church of St Mary the Virgin Memorial Cheshunt
Pre War
Herbert Willie Newnham known as Albert Willie/Frank William & William was born in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, in the early part of 1881, son of Henry Newnham and Ann/Annie (Watson) Newnham. One of eight children.
1881 Census he is recorded as Albert W, aged 4 months, living with his Mother, three brothers and two sisters in Albury Grove Road, Cheshunt, Herts.
1891 Census he is recorded as Willie, aged 10, living with his Mother, brother Edward (17), sisters Nancy (16) and Elizabeth (7) in, St James Road, Cheshunt, Herts. His father Henry died later that year.
1901 Census he is recorded as William (21), single, and working as a Nursery Labourer, living with his sister Maud and her husband Arthur Joyner in, Willow Cottages, Goffs Oak, Herts.
William Newnham married Minnie Elizabeth Adams the daughter of George and Elizabeth Adams of Cheshunt, in 1901. They went on to have ten children.
1911 Census he is record as William married to Minnie and they have six children living in Hammond Street, Cheshunt, Herts. He is employed as a Nursery Labourer.
Wartime Service
He travelled to the County Town of Hertford to enlist, posted to the Bedfordshire Regiment with the service number 18596, later when service numbers were standardised 201321. Initially serving with the 2nd Battalion, later transferred to the 5th battalion. On completion of his training, he was posted for active service to Egypt, his Medal Index Card (MID) states he arrive in France on 30th September 1915.
He was Killed in Action on 20th July 1917, aged 36, during an attack on Umbrella Hill, he has no known grave, he is commemorated on the Jerusalem Memorial, Israel and Palestine (including Gaza). Panel 17.
Extracts from www.bedfordregiment.org.uk:
In the period leading up to the eventual fall of Gaza in November 1917, the 5th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment was assigned to conduct a major raid on Turkish positions in front of Gaza. They held the line opposite the Turkish positions on Umbrella Hill, which would be the target of their attentions.
Training and preparation for the raid took over two weeks but nothing was known about the dispositions of the Turks before the raid, or the strength of the garrison holding the small hill in front of them.
Captain H.S. Armstrong led the party with Lieutenants H. Wilkin, B.W. Smythe, W.A. Shaw, Second Lieutenant R.H. Smith and 231 Other Ranks making the raiding party. By 8.15pm on the 20th July, the raiding party was assembled and in place, ready for "Zero Hour", which was set at 9.00pm.
At 8.55pm "two flashes in the distance were seen & after what seemed a long time two dull roars & a heavy droning noise growing louder & louder were heard, then two vivid flashes on UMBRELLA HILL followed almost at once - the tremendous crash of two 8" shells exploding shook the night". Every two minutes, this repeated until 9pm, when "a veritable inferno started". Flashes constantly lit the sky from both behind them and on Umbrella Hill as the barrage rained down on the Turkish in their trenches. The Machine Gun barrage that joined the cacophony at 9.25pm could hardly be heard, such was the din.
At 9pm, the raiders scrambled from their trenches and disappeared through the gaps in their own wire into the pitch black that was no man's land. The advance was so quick that they had to halt for one minute to avoid running into their own barrage at Beanfield, and they laid down 150 yards in front of Turkish positions. At 9.06pm the advanced screen under Lt B.W. Smythe dashed forward - despite shrapnel bursting over their heads - found the gaps in the Turkish wire and shouted the positions back to their comrades over the din of whining shells and horrendous explosions. A minute later the Bedford’s fell on Front Trench, furiously bayoneting the defenders they found there before moving on to clear their assigned positions of the enemy. Captain Armstrong fixed his HQ position there as the teams loaded their rifles and went about their dreadful business of locating and eliminating the enemy.
Lt Smythe dashed across the open to Cross Cut and cleared a position of enemy machine gun teams so they could not lay an enfilading fire onto the Bedford’s as they went about their work and held the position for the raid.
The left section under Lt W.A. Shaw bombed their way along Side Trench into Silk Alley and finally made contact with the Right Section at Tassel Corner. Bombing sections were quickly pushed along Cover Alley and Side Trench. The Turks were noted as being that demoralised that in most cases they had to be bombed in their dugouts. Each dugout had between three and six men that "refused to come out or indeed to do anything except cower down on the ground". Some Turkish soldiers made a stand in Cover Alley, but they were "speedily overcome".
The Right Section of the raiders under 2nd Lt R.H. Smith entered the Turkish trenches at Stay Alley, swept through Echelon Trench at the point of the bayonet and made their way to Tassel Corner but were stopped from further progress by the "congestion of troops". They climbed from the bottlenecked trench, sprinted across the open ground, and fell on Dug-Out Alley killing "a large number of Turks". As the evacuation signal went, they had reached the bottom of Dugout Alley.
Meanwhile a bombing section had been working its way along Echelon Trench, where they killed over ten Turks in hand-to-hand combat, had taken several prisoners and put a large Minenwerfer out of action "very ingeniously".
While these four sections had been "at work killing or capturing the garrison", a party of Royal Engineer's under Lt Mendham of the 484th Field Company of the Royal Engineers had been systematically destroying the enemy sangars and wrecking the trenches. They left several heavy charges of explosives in the main Turkish dug outs which were exploded after the evacuation by time fuses.
At 9.35pm, the raiders evacuated the trench system and sprinted back across no-man's land, leaving carnage, destruction and an extremely confused enemy firing in all directions.
On their return to the British lines, and by "sheer bad luck", the Turks put an "intense bombardment" down almost on top of the assembly area and caused almost all of the casualties, except "probably two or three killed…& perhaps 8 or 10 [of the] wounded". This caused "considerable confusion" and much of the raiding party and supporting units ran forwards to their own front lines to take cover, unwittingly running straight into the enemy barrage. Realising what was happening, Captain Christopher Miskin sprinted out through the flying shrapnel and hastily reorganised their return route into the relatively safe front trench. The several hundred men crammed into the trench to watch the barrage that covered an area between fifty and on hundred and fifty yards behind them, over a front of two hundred yards. Following some quick reconnaissance, they were moved to the flanks around Samson's Ridge and Sniper Spur, taking them away from the barrage areas. By 1.30am on the 21st, all bar the wounded had been evacuated. It is incredible that the wounded were not in the hundreds, considering that around 500 Turkish shells fell into the HQ and assembly areas that were packed with returning raiders.
The large number of wounded were finally evacuated by 2.30am and an hour later a six strong patrol went out into no man's land, towards Beanfield (about 150 yards short of Umbrella Hill) looking for the missing men but found nothing. A month later, it was discovered that five Bedford’s posted as missing were actually Prisoners of War.
Additional Information
CWGC record him as William Newman, the Local War Memorials record him as William Newnham.
Minnie received a widow’s pension of 41/3 a week and his effects of £8-5-10, pay owing and his war gratuity of £11-10-00.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Jonty Wild, Brian Lodge,
