William Taylor

Name: William Taylor

Rank:  Private

Service No:  4904

Units Served:  11th and 16th Battalions

Personal Details: Born in Aberdeen to John and Jessie Taylor in September of 1892, he attended Ferryhill School. William Taylor moved to Australia at the age of nineteen with his parents and five brothers, although he was the only one in his family to fight for the Australian troops with the other boys fighting for the British forces.
At the age of twenty five he married Margaret Jane Palmer Payne, who preferred to be known as Jane. Their marriage was short lived though as William was sent to serve only weeks after their marriage.William was a skilled farm worker but he also worked as an engine cleaner and fireman in Southern Cross, Western Australia.

Enlistment Details: William enlisted on the 14th December 1915 at Blackboy Hill, Western Australia.

Details of his role in the war: William was initially allocated to the 11th Btn on the 2nd February 1916. William embarked on the ‘Ulysses” from Fremantle on the 1st April 1916 and disembarked at Alexandria on the 25th April 1916. On 12th May 1915 he was absorbed into the 16th Btn. Only seven days later he joined to fight with the British Expeditionary Force and they disembarked at Marseilles on the 9th of June.
On the 11th of August  at Mouquet Farm he received shell wounds to the left forearm and knee and was taken to the 3rd Casualty Clearing Station, from where he was placed on an Ambulance train the next day to Calais where he was shipped back to England in the HS Dieppe. He was admitted to the Military hospital at Herne Bay on the sixteenth of August with his shrapnel wounds moved up to severe. On the second of September he was discharged to Harefield Hospital . Then on the 6th of September he was taken on strength and marched out to Wareham, only to be pronounced temporarily unfit on the 3rd on November. It wasn’t until the 14th of March that he was marched out to the 3rd Convalescent Depot. Then later on the 9th of July William was moved overseas from Perham Downs to France via Southampton.
The next day he was marched in from England  and on the 15th of July was marched out to Battalion, re-joining the Battalion the next day. He fought there until the 28th of September where he was reported wounded for the second time at Hell Fire Corner on the Menin Road, two days later he was pronounced killed in action.
He is reportedly buried in an unmarked grave near Ypres and his name can be found on panel 81 in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial and the Menin Gate. He was later awarded the British War medal and the Victory medal. His wife Jane was never to remarry and lived as a widow for another 65 years after his death.

Date of Death: 28th September 1917

Cemetery Details:  Menin Gate