Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE WILLIAM COLLINSON SAWDON 11/448. Born on 6th December 1893 in Great Kelk, Driffield William stood a little over 5’5″ with brown hair and blue eyes, the eldest of nine children to Louisa Sawdon. His mother remarried and left William in the care of his grandparents while she and his siblings moved and used her new married surname, Kirk. A Flour Miller by trade, he lived at 20 York Avenue, St. Mark’s Street, Hull. When war came he queued on 8th September 1914 outside City Hall with all those other would-be heroes joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, the second of the Hull Pals battalions, and known as ‘The Tradesmen’. Having served in Egypt defending the Suez Canal over Christmas 1915, the Pals left Port Said on 29th February 1916 disembarking in Marseilles on March 8th and heading north for the trenches of the Western Front. On 27th June 1916, at 10.30pm, as part of the build-up to the Somme Offensive, William left the safety of his trench with a raiding party. The battalion war diary records:
“….a sharp bombing encounter took place which lasted about five minutes which seemed to have been successful.”
William didn’t come back alive. He is buried at Sucrerie Military Cemetery, a young man of 22. His grave inscription, reads, “AT REST”. His name was recorded on Hull’s St Mark Street war memorial and his army effects left to his grandmother, Mrs Rachel Raymor.
