Name
William Knott
6/02/1892
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
17/04/1917
25
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
43144
Northamptonshire Regiment
6th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HOLLYBROOK MEMORIAL, SOUTHAMPTON
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
He has no Headstone. He is commemorated on the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton, to the the missing.
UK & Other Memorials
Cheshunt Town Memorial, St. Clements Church Memorial Turnford, Railwaymen Died in the Great War
Pre War
William Knott was born in Turnford, Hertfordshire, on 6th February 1892, son of Joseph John Knott a, Furnace Stocker at a Garden Nursery and Hannah Knott (nee Cannon). The youngest of five children although one died in infancy.
He was Baptised on 31st July at Wormley, Herts. The family were living in Turnford at the time of his Baptism.
1901 Census records William aged 9, living with his parents, brother Osborne (15) a butchers boy and sister Daisy (11) in, High Road, Turnford, Herts.
In 1906, aged 14, William left school and joined the Great Eastern Railway Company (GER) as a Clerk, in the London Divisional Commercial Superintendents Office.
1911 Census records William aged 19, as a Railway Clerk, living with his parents at, 4 Turnford Hall Cottages, Turnford, Herts.
Wartime Service
William enlisted at St. Pauls Churchyard, London, in March 1916, posted to the Bedfordshire Regiment and issued with the service number 27028. Later transferred to the Northamptonshire Regiment with the service number 43144.
William was wounded in action and was being transferred home to the UK aboard the Armed Ambulance Transport ship SS “Donegal” which had sailed from Le Havre, France, on 17th April 1917, bound for Southampton, with 610 wounded soldiers and a crew of 70, with HMHS “Lanfranc” under escort by several Royal Navy ships when she was torpedoed by the German U-Boat, CU-21, under the command of Oberleutnant Zur See Reinhold Saltzwedel. Sinking in the English Channel, 19 miles off the English Coast with the loss of 29 wounded soldiers and 12 crew members, William being one of the soldiers lost, his body was not recovered, he is commemorated on the Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton to the missing at sea.
Additional Information
His effects of £2-9-9, pay owing and his war gratuity of £4, went to his father Joseph Knott.
The Great Eastern Railway Magazine of July 1917, records William Knott as serving with the Bedfordshire Regiment and not the Northamptonshire Regiment as recorded by the CWGC records.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Jonty Wild
