Pte William Pearce
17 Pte William Pearce
202969
1st Norfolk
Died: 30-Oct-17
Listed: Little Dunham Memorial
Buried: Hooge Crater Cemetery
Born: Swaffham
202969
1st Norfolk
Died: 30-Oct-17
Listed: Little Dunham Memorial
Buried: Hooge Crater Cemetery
Born: Swaffham
William was born in 1889 in Newton by Castle Acre. In 1911 he was living in Well Yard, West Lexham. He was married to Helen and they had a 1 year old daughter, Doris. William at the time was a horseman on a farm.
William enlisted in the Norfolk Regiment, one record suggests it was in 1914. He was in the 1st Battalion, who fought in France and Flanders right through the war in nearly all the major battles. It was in one of the most awful of these, the Battle of Passchendaele, that William was killed, on one of the worst days of that conflict, 30th October 1917. William was initially buried near to where he fell and later his body was transferred to the very large Hooge Crater Cemetery next to the Menin Road. Biography written in part by Gordon Phillips |