Name
William John Stoten
1891
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
03/08/1917
27
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Gunner
83305
Royal Garrison Artillery
95th Siege Battery
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
VLAMERTINGHE NEW MILITARY CEMETERY
V. B. 38.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
REST IN PEACE
UK & Other Memorials
St Mary the Virgin Church, Therfield, Non-conformist Chapel, Therfield, We are not aware of any memorial in Reed End
Pre War
William John Stoten was born on 25 July 1891 in Therfield, Nr Royston, Herts the son of James and Annie Stoten (nee Freeman). He was baptised at St Mary's Church, Therfield on 6 September 1891.
His mother Annie died in 1899, aged 31, and on the 1901 Census his widowed father was living at Dane End, Therfield, with William (9) and his brother Arthur (6) and working as a horsekeeper on a farm.
His father remarried in 1907 at Therfield to widow Sarah Drage who had a son Thomas, and on the 1911 Census his father, stepmother, brother Arthur and stepbrother Thomas, were living at Reed End, Therfield, where his father was working as a horsekeeper on a farm. William, Arthur and Thomas were all working as farm labourers/ploughmen.
Prior to enlistment, William was employed by Mr C R Turney at Mardley Bury at Reed End.
Wartime Service
He enlisted in Hitchin and was posted to the Royal Garrison Artillery on 20 May 1916. His partially surviving service record shows that he was 24 years, 10 months with a height of 5 feet 6 and 3/4 inches and a chest measurement of 37 ½ inches. He trained with the Royal Garrison Artillery from 3 June 1916 and was sent to France on 6 August 1916. By 31 August he was a gunner attached to 95th Siege Battery.
William was killed in action on 3 August 1917 and is buried in Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, 5 km. West of Ypres, Belgium in plot 5, row B, grave 38.
The role of the Siege Battery
Siege Batteries RGA were equipped with heavy howitzers, sending large calibre high explosive shells in high trajectory, plunging fire. The usual armaments were 6 inch, 8 inch and 9.2 inch howitzers, although some had huge railway- or road-mounted 12 inch howitzers. As British artillery tactics developed, the Siege Batteries were most often employed in destroying or neutralising the enemy artillery, as well as putting destructive fire down on strongpoints, dumps, store, roads and railways behind enemy lines. The armaments of each battery will be given as details are added.
William’s 95th Battery was attached to the 70th Heavy Artillery and their actual war diaries are difficult to determine because of cross movements but on the day of William’s death on 3 August 1917, they were in Belgium and one officer was wounded and nine ‘other ranks’ were killed between 11.30 am and 11.15 pm “mostly on work of carrying ammunition on the Saville Road” . William was one of them.
Additional Information
His father received a war gratuity of £4 10s and pay owing £13. 13s.11d.
Stepbrother to Thomas Henry Drage who served with the Lancashire Fusiliers and died on 15 March 1918. Two pension cards exist relating to both William and his stepbrother Thomas. One has his stepmother as dependant and does not show any pension amount, the other has his father as dependant and shows he received a pension of 3s 6d a week, later increased to 5 shillings a week, however it is not clear how this amount relates to each deceased soldier.
His brother Arthur enlisted in Royston on 7 September 1914 and joined the Bedfordshire Regiment but was discharged on 10 December 1914 as 'not likely to become an efficient soldier' because he had 'flat feet'.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Malcolm Lennox, Jean Handley
