Name
William H Taylor
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
23/07/1916
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
4168
Hertfordshire Regiment
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LOOS MEMORIAL
Panel 135.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Thundridge War Memorial, Hertfordshire Regimental Memorial, All Saints Church, Hertford
Pre War
William Taylor was born in Wandsworth in 11th November 1898 where his mother Bertha had been born, but his father George had come from Wadesmill.
In 1901 his parents were living at Cold Christmas, but William was living at 40 Standen Road Wandsworth, as a "Nurse Child" in a family called Watkins, whose head was a piano tuner. There was also another Nurse Child in the house, so nursing may have been a sideline.
In 1911 the family were all living together at Timber Hall cottages Thundridge and his father was given as an agricultural labourer.
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of war, he would only have been 16 or 17, but perhaps he falsified his age when he enlisted in Hertford on 1st December 1914 and joined the Hertfordshire Regt or was accepted as a boy soldier.
He arrived at the front in May 1916 (this would have been in line with the rules on age to serve abroad). He seems to have been attached to the Gloucesters a few days before he died.
His fragmentary army records have survived.
Acknowledgments
Maurice Charge, Stuart Osborne, Pat Bird, Jonty Wild
