Name: William Colbeck
Rank: Sapper
Unit/Regiment: 264th Railway Company, Royal Engineers
Service Number: WR/271620 (formerly 269648)
Date of Death: 6 November 1918
Cemetery: Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery, Somme, France
William Colbeck was born in Batley on 26 October 1887.1 His parents David Colbeck and Catherine Garner married at St Mary of the Angels, Batley on 7 February 1885.2 William was their second, and final child, his elder brother John being born the previous year.
The family lived in Mill Lane in 1891, Belvedere Road in 1901, and Talbot Street in 1911. At the time of William’s death they resided at Field Lane.
William’s father worked in the woollen industry being described as a woollen weaver in the 1891 census, and a rag grinder in 190. However from the 1911 census onwards this changed to a woollen spinner. His employers were initially Messrs. J. Newsome and Sons, Batley Carr, and then Messrs. G. and J Stubley Ltd, Batley.3 In his later years he assisted his son, John, who ran a drapery business on Field Lane.
William initially followed his father’s trade, being a woollen spinner in the 1911 census. There is also a suggestion that he may have been involved in the setting up of his brother’s Field Lane drapery business in 1915.4 But it appears that prior to enlisting with the Army in 1916 he was working as a platelayer, employed by Batley Great Northern Railway Station.5 This job pre-determined the direction of his army service.
William enlisted in March 1916, and joined the Royal Engineers (RE) as a sapper.
The RE helped the army to fight, move and live and by the 1918 numbered 315,000 men.6 They were behind the construction and maintenance of everything from field fortifications, to roads, camps, water supplies, waterways and trenches; from laying and taking care of cable for telephone and telegraph, to mapping, tunnelling, mining and maintaining transport; from developing responses to chemical warfare to maintaining guns and other weapons; and of course constructing and maintaining the railways, which were so essential for moving men, munitions and supplies.
Naturally, RE Railway units prioritised selecting those enlisting who had previous experience working with British railway companies. It meant William Colbeck was an ideal candidate, putting to good use the specialist skills he developed in his civilian life for the benefit of the British Army war effort.
Longmoor in Hampshire was the centre for all RE railway and road personnel training, and this is where the 264th Railway Company, to which William was assigned, was raised. They embarked for France in May 1917, though it is unclear whether William Colbeck was with this initial tranche.
In terms of railway construction, once Labour companies had prepared the ground, the platelaying sappers stepped in working round the clock constructing and maintaining mile upon mile of temporary tracks. Often the would be close to the Front, taking standard gauge railways as near as possible to it, with the constant threat of being targeted by enemy artillery.
However in the latter weeks of the war the emphasis had changed. An extract from the 264th Railway Company Unit War Diary gives a flavour of the work they were now undertaking in October 1918, during the final stages of the war. Based at Camp Bray, just north of Bray-sur-Somme, the 26 October entry read:
Maintenance and salvaging work on Chemin Vert Plateau Line. Lifting and packing and draining track. Patrolling lines. Collecting, loading, unloading and stacking rails and fittings.
Chemin Vert Yard water supply – Concreting reservoir and straightening expanded metal.
Froissy-Foy Line – Dismantling track, loading rails, sleepers and fastenings.
6 ORs admitted to hospital. 1 ORs proceeded on leave to United Kingdom.7
By the end of October they had moved further south in the Somme region, to a camp at La Flaque (just south of Proyart). It was more of the same type of railway dismantling. The noteworthy point though is the steady number of men being admitted to hospital daily, recorded as ‘sick.’
The influenza pandemic, not shellfire, was now taking its toll on the men of the 264th Railway Company. It would presumably be sometime in this period that William Colbeck was amongst those men making their way to hospital.
William was admitted to the 41st Stationary Hospital, France. Based in the Somme region in the Pont-Remy area, they were struggling to cope with the number of patients. Alongside the influenza admissions, the pandemic was also striking down staff. It was an horrendous situation, and the strain they faced was made clear in their Unit War Diary. For example an entry on 13 October 1918 read:
…This leaves only 14 sisters to run the Hospital — 597 P[a]t[ien]t[s] — It is not nearly enough. The work of the Hospital is now very heavy8
By 16 October an entry read they were only equipped for 400 beds, and they now generally had 600 – 800 patients, and often 1,000 patients.9
On 4 November 1918 the hospital’s entry read:
Routine work —- Influenza and Br[oncho] Pneumonia still raging.
9 & 10 deaths often in a day.10
Two days after this entry, William Colbeck was one of those who died as a result of pneumonia.
On 11 November 1918, as many across Britain were rejoicing at the announcement of the Armistice ending hostilities, the Colbeck family were grieving. This was the day they received official War Office notification of William’s death.11 As others celebrated in town, they learned they would be amongst those families destined never see their loved one again.
On 23 November a series of tributes to William appeared in the Batley News, including the following:
COLBECK. —In loving memory of Sapper William Colbeck, Royal Engineers, who died from pneumonia in the 41st Stationary Hospital, France, November 6th, 1918.
No one knows how much I miss him,
None but aching hearts can tell;
Forget him, no, I never will,
I loved him here, I love him still.
“Ever in my thoughts”
From his loving fiancée Elsie.
William was awarded the Victory Medal and British War Medal.
In addition to St Mary’s, he is also remembered on the Batley War Memorial, his name being separately submitted by his father, his brother, and St Mary of the Angel’s parish priest, Father Lea.
On Wednesday, 14 May 1919 a national Service of Remembrance was held at St Paul’s Cathedral to commemorate all the railwaymen ‘who laid down their lives for their Country in the Great War, 1914-1918’. The service took place at 2.30 pm and was led by a number of senior clergymen, with an address by the Bishop of Peterborough. Music was played by an orchestra made up of railway employees. To accompany the service a booklet was issued containing the Order of Service and a list of the names of all those known to have died by early 1919. The booklet notes that ‘186475 Railwaymen of Great Britain and Ireland, joined His Majesty’s Forces, 18957 of whom were killed in action, died from wounds etc’.12 William Colbeck’s name was included.
He is also commemorated on the re-designed Memorial at Kings Cross Station, which was unveiled in October 2013. The Memorial was originally erected in 1920 by the Great Northern Railway in memory of employees who fell in World War One.
William Colbeck was initially laid to rest at Dury Hospital Military Cemetery, under the wall of the Asylum near the west side of the Amiens-Dury Road. The Asylum was used intermittently by British medical units between August 1918 to January 1919. After the Armistice, Villiers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery was created, bringing in graves from other burial grounds and concentrating them in this single, larger cemetery. William Colbeck’s remains were interred here in 1927. His headstone bears the following family inscription:
THY WILL O LORD, NOT OURS
MAY HE REST IN PEACE
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Sources:
1. Parish register.
2. Batley News, 14 February 1885.
3. Batley News, 30 January 1943.
4. Batley News, 6 May 1939. Reporting the death of John Colbeck, it referred to him and his late brother establishing the drapery business in 1915. It named his brother as Walter. This is incorrect – John only had the one brother, William.
5. Batley News, 23 November 1918.
6. National Army Museum, Corps of the Royal Engineer, https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/corps-royal-engineers
7. 264th Railway Company Unit War Diary, The National Archives (TNA), Ref WO95/4054/9.
8. 41st Stationary Hospital Unit War Diary, TNA, Ref WO95/4107/5.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Names of the Fallen Information provided by his father, David.
12. Railway Museum, Fallen Railwaymen Database, https://fallenrailwaymen.omeka.net/about-the-fallen-railwaymen-database
Other Sources:
• Censuses, England & Wales – 1891 to 1921.
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
• GRO Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes.
• Medal Index Card.
• Medal Award Rolls.
• National Library of Scotland Scotland Maps.
• Pension Record Cards and Ledgers, Western Front Association.
• Soldiers Died in the Great War.
• The Long, Long Trail website.
PastToPresentGenealogy 