McGuire, William

BORN HULL 1900. ENLISTED HULL. DIED OF WOUNDS. ARMY RECORDS ADDRESS. STEP SON OF JOSEPH & ELLEN CREESE ABOVE.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE WILLIAM McGUIRE 201869. A tricky man to track down due to different spellings of his name on the two Census records he features in. I think I am right in saying William was born in March 1900, to Ellen McGuire. Ellen had four children of which William is the second, and her eldest daughter, Ellen Jobe, is listed in 1911 as being illegitimate, a shameful thing back then. Ellen McGuire married Joseph Creese and the family lived at 7 Mechanic Lane in Hull. William enlisted when he came of age and joined the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment in the trenches of the Western Front. He was killed in action on 7th September 1918 as the Pals attacked German positions around Soyer Farm having been given orders to drive the enemy back beyond the River Lys; easier said than done when you are attacking in broad daylight over flat terrain and walking into a forest of barbed wire and being raked by well-defended machine guns. William’s body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial to the missing; he was 18 years old.