BORN HULL 1895. ALSO KNOWN AS ‘TEDDY’. ONLY SON OF EDWARD & EMILY ADAMSON ABOVE.
Born in 1895, William was the third of five children to Edward and Emily Adamson of 45 Leonard Street, Beverley Road, Hull. Known as “Teddy”, to his friends, he worked as a Tailor prior to the outbreak of war but signed up to fight for King and Country in the early days of September 1914 joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, “The Commercials”, 1st Hull Pals.
Training throughout 1915 and serving in Egypt over Christmas and the turning year, William arrived in France in the first week of March 1916 disembarking in Marseilles before being herded into packed trains for the journey north to the trenches of the Western Front.
William died of wounds on 2nd July 1916 having sustained them the day before on the Somme.
Of all days, 1st July 1916 was not a day to be wounded. So many thousands were waiting for medical attention, strewn on stretchers in the open air outside makeshift hospital tents whilst doctors toiled in horrendous conditions with few supplies making the worst kind of decision on the basis of one simple tenet, who might live. Thousands died from lack of attention. This is the true face of war, a tailor from Hull bleeding to death namelessly in a foreign field.
William Edwin Adamson is buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 21 years old.
