L.Cpl. W. Pattison

FIRST NAMES: William

UNIT: 3rd Border Regiment

NUMBER: 8575

STATUS: Died of Wounds

DATE OF DEATH: 24th May 1915

CEMETERY OR MEMORIAL: Shoeburyness (St. Andrew) Churchyard, Southend

AGE: 26

William was the son of Robert and Mary Pattison. He was born in the third quarter of 1887 in Portsea, Portsmouth. In 1891 He was living at 20 Londesborough Road, Portsea with his father (a painter), his mother and his older brother, John Robert, who was two years older than William and appears to have preferred to be known as Robert. By 1901, the family had moved to 2 Jubilee Terrace, Liphook, Southampton and Robert snr. is described as a house painter.

William enlisted in the Army on 23rd August 1906, aged 18, and joined the Border Regiment. He was described on enlistment as being 5ft 5 & 3/4 inches tall, with blue eyes, a fresh complexion and light brown hair.

He served in Gibraltar from 11th December 1906 to 23rd October 1908, during which time he was hospitalised with a slight injury to his left hand which became infected and left him with a scar on his left thumb and first finger. He sustained the injury while acting as mess orderly in the barracks. He was a bandsman (playing the cornet) for 4 years and he also suffered a burst eardrum whilst playing with the band on 30th March 1907. A Court of Inquiry was convened, which established that William was in no way to blame for the injury, but no record of exactly how he sustained the injury has survived. After Gibraltar, he served in India until the end of his term of enlistment, on 30th November 1913, when he left the Regular Army and transferred to the Reserve, after 7 years of service.

William's conduct, on discharge, was described as exemplary and his commanding officer described him as: "an excellent, hardworking, willing man. He is steady, reliable and trustworthy. A man of active habits and a keen athlete. A very smart soldier." He was awarded two good conduct badges and he also became a qualified machine gunner.

It appears that by the time William had left the Army, his family has moved to North End, Northallerton. William re-joined his family and worked for the Post Office there, before being transferred to Barton, near Darlington.

When War broke out in August 1914, William was still in the Army Reserve and so was ordered to re-join the Border Regiment. He sailed to France as part of the original British Expeditionary Force on 5th October 1914. He was badly wounded by shrapnel in his back and a bullet wound in his chest on 29th October 1914 at the First Battle of Ypres and was transported to the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth. He was subsequently discharged from hospital and re-joined the Border Regiment at their depot in Shoeburyness, near Southend.

He was due to be married, but whilst at Shoeburyness he contracted cerebrospinal fever (a particularly nasty form of meningitis) and was taken to Southend Victoria Central Hospital. The depot at Shoeburyness was part of a major national meningitis outbreak in early 1915, which was made worse by the close, and often harsh, living conditions experienced in military camps and barracks. It is likely that his recent wounds may have made him particularly susceptible to the meningococcal infection. Tragically, he was never able to recover sufficiently to marry his bride and he died in hospital at Southend at the age of 26.

William's brother, Sergeant Robert Pattison, also served in the Army and survived the War.

His official army rank was Lance Corporal, though he is recorded as a Corporal on the Northallerton Memorial.