BORN HULL 1895. KNOWN AS “SONNY”. ONLY SON OF JAMES R. & ANNIE HORSFALL, AT 29, FARRINGDON STREET, HULL , 68, MARSHALL STREET, HULL AND AFTER THE WAR, 90, ALEXANDRA ROAD, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS). HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. DIED OF INFLUENZA, ON 15/10/1918, AGED 22. HIS NAME IS RECORDED ON THE HOLY TRINITY METHODIST WW1 MEMORIAL, PRINCES AVENUE, HULL.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE WILLIAM HORSFALL 10/20. Born 16th November 1895, William was the eldest child of James and Annie Horsfall of 68 Marshall Street, Hull. The son of a Printer’s Manager, he was educated at Lambert Street School and left to become a Draper’s Assistant, a trade he plied when war broke out. The keen-eyed of you will have spotted that his number 10/20 meant he was only the 20th man in the queue for the fledgling 10th Battalion on 1st September 1914 and had been with The Pals from the very start serving in Egypt over the winter of 1915 before landing in France the following February. William had seen it all. He had lived through the Somme and Oppy Wood and seen those Originals who had stood in line that late summer day fall away one by one until very few were left. He married Maud Hugman from Hardy Street, in July 1917. Returning to the front line, he was seriously wounded during the fighting at Estaires on 12th April 1918 as the German Spring Offensive threatened to punch a gaping hole in the Allied lines and take Paris. He was taken prisoner and treated in hospital in Prisoner of War Camps first at Salzwedel and then at Gardelgen where he died of pneumonia on 15th October 1918 following influenza, very possibly the Spanish Flu that was set to ravage Europe for the next year. William is buried at Berlin South Western Cemetery; he was 22 years old. Military Age in 1914 was 19; William had lied.
