William Wilson Gatward was born in late 1878 in Royston, Hertfordshire. He was the son of Harriett Gatward.

William’s grand-daughter kindly provided the following: Harriet was born in Thursford, Herts in 1856, the eldest of 5 children, all girls, to Mr and Mrs. Samual Gatward (nee Bullard). She left the family cottage when she was 16 and went to work in service with the Nash family in Baldock Street Royston. Harriet gave birth to her second child, William, when she was 26, the son of Blacksmith John Wilson who worked with his brother at a forge in Royston. John passed away in 1888 and Harriett married Charles in 1888, within a year of John’s death.

The first official record of William is in the 1881 census where he is listed as William Gatward, a 2 year-old visitor to the home of 67 year-old Sarah Wilson and her family at 16 Kneesworth Street, Royston. Sarah’s 2 sons John and Charles Cook are also both listed.

10 years later in the next census, William had rearranged his name to William Gatward Wilson and was listed as a scholar living with Charles and Harriett at 23 Kneesworth Street. The census showed that Charles was working as a Blacksmith and William’s grandson kindly provided the following: The Wilson family history in Royston is very interesting as my great great uncle John (known as Jack) was the last blacksmith in Royston after a long list of Wilson’s going back over 200 years.

By 1901, William had taken a trade as a Wheelwright and continued to live on Kneesworth Street with his family. However, at some point during the early 1900’s, William moved to Swansea to take work as a Coach Builder where he appeared in the 1911 census living as a boarder in Ystalyfera.

At the outbreak of the Great War, William quickly enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery, and following that would have seen little of Swansea other than a few short periods of leave.

However, on one of those periods of leave - on October 14th - just as he was about to ship to France, William married Gertrude Rundle in Swansea. Gertrude was a widow with two young children.

William and Gertrude went on to have three more children. His grand-son continued: My father William Kenneth Wilson was born in June 1916. He also had two brothers, John who was born around 1920 and Peter who was born in 1922. John had very many health problems, he was a haemophiliac and died at the tender age of 19.

Following the war, William returned to his family at 12 Brunswick St, Swansea and took work as a Motor Body Builder at the Brunswick Garage of South Wales Transport.

William Gatward Wilson passed away in 1929. His grandson concluded: My GF died in 1929 at the age of 50 and is buried in Bethel Cemetery in Swansea in plot no.25. He is buried there with his wife Gertrude and his son John.

William Gatward Wilson enlisted in the 1st Welsh (Howitzer) Brigade shortly after the start of the Great War. Unfortunately, his service record was destroyed during the Blitz, however it is possible to piece together much of his service based on the surviving scraps of information.

Based on his service number, WG Gatward enlisted on 8 October 1914. He would have initially undertaken his basic training in Swansea and appears in a December 1914 photograph of the trainee soldiers listed as a Driver (although his initials were incorrectly given as WF).

Shortly after, he would have joined the Brigade either in Northampton or Cambridge and continued his training. In May 1915, the Brigade moved to Northampton where they completed their preparations for Active Service.

On the night of 21/22 November 1915 the Brigade finally shipped overseas, travelling from Southampton to Le Havre. Dvr WG Wilson was one of the 401 men of the Brigade who made this crossing. From Le Havre, the Brigade moved South East to the Somme to undertake their front line familiarization in a quiet sector recently taken over from the French near Albert. Just six months later, this would mark the southern edge of the Somme battlefield.

Shortly before Christmas 1915, the Brigade came out of the line and received orders to rejoin their Division in Egypt. The rest of the 53rd Welsh (Territorial) Division had fought in Gallipoli and suffered badly.

After a short delay, the Brigade made the dangerous 5-day crossing from Marseilles to Alexandria in early February 1916 and moved to Beni Salama to rejoin their Division and acclimatize to the desert conditions. Beni Salama is approximately 30 miles North West of Cairo and once there, many of the men took the opportunity to catch the train into the city to enjoy the sites.

No other official documents have survived relating to WG Wilson’s service. However, his family still hold a number of photographs that confirm that he made the journey to Egypt and that he was promoted to Fitter Sergeant, demonstrating that his civilian skills as a Coach Body Builder were particularly useful when maintaining the 4.5in Howitzers of the Brigade.

Whilst it cannot be certain what Ftr/Sgt Wilson did in Egypt, it is possible to describe the ‘normal’ route for a man of the Brigade.

In May 1916, the Brigade moved East to the Ismalia area to take over a section of the Suez Canal defences. This was hot work and not much happened during this period.

Later that year their commander, General Murray decided that attack was the best form of defence and in November the Brigade started the march across the Sinai Desert. This was hot, thirsty and challenging work with their heavy guns sinking into the soft sand despite the make-shift created by laying down chicken wire on the sand. To combat this, the Brigade fitted pedrails to the wheels – wooden blocks which spread the weight of the gun – and one of his family’s surviving pictures clearly shows a 4.5in Howitzer with pedrails attached to its wheels (please see the image library).

Once across the Sinai, the Brigade took part in the first 2 unsuccessful battles of Gaza at the start of 1917 and later that year in the 3rd successful battle. The year culminated with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force taking Jerusalem and the guns of the Brigade proudly led the column into the city.

- in 1918 the Brigade continued to push the Turkish Army back through the Judaean Hills into Jordan. The final months of the war were marked by terrible sickness and many men succumbed to Malaria which stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

Following the armistice with the Turks, the Brigade shipped back to Alexandria and after a short delay due to civil unrest started returning home in early 1919. The men started to demobilise in February/March 1919 although some continued to serve as late as mid-1920.

For his service in the Great War Fitter Sergeant William Gatward Wilson was awarded the 1914/14 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. His family still treasure his medals.