Hamner, William

Full Name: William Hanmer (NOTE: William’s surname was incorrectly spelt on the War Memorial).

Date of Death: 02/10/1917

Age at Death: 32 (b. 1885)

Regiment: Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire Regiment).

Regimental Number: 26871

Rank: Private

Previous Regiments: Formerly 32055, Lincolnshire Regiment, and 52307, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment

Buried: Derry House Cemetery No.2, II. F1. 7., Belgium.

NOTES: William was born in Hulme, Manchester in 1885. In 1911, he was a French Polisher, living as a boarder at 813 London Road, Derby. At the same time, his bride-to-be, 16-year-old Beatrice Ellen Gregory, was registered as a visitor at 51 Victoria Avenue, Borrowash. This was the residence of John Rose, who worked as a Shunter. Beatrice was working as a Cotton Reeler.

The couple were married at All Saints, Ockbrook, in 1914, shortly after war broke out.

There is no record of when William joined up, but he served in the Sherwood Foresters and the Lincolnshire Regiment. Eventually he joined the Wiltshire Regiment. He died in action on the 2nd October 1917.

He is buried at the small Derry House Cemetery, near Ypres (Ieper), Belgium.

Beatrice re-married on 25th December, 1918, in St. Osmond’s Church, Osmaston, to Charles Lewis, a coach-builder, thirteen years her senior. She died in October 1960 and is buried in Chaddesden Cemetery, Derby.