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Record #18311

Name :: : William WATERSON (1897 - 1918)
Father: :
Mother: :

BMD and other details

Date of Birth: : 5 Mar 1897
Marriage (1): :
Marriage (2): :
Date of Death: : 10 Aug 1918 Notes : Killed in Action

Abode (1) : Place of BirthEngland, Norfolk, Norwich

Abode (2) : Place of Death / BurialFrance

Sailing Information

Date of Arrival: : 9 May 1913
Country: : Canada
Ship: : Empress of Britain
Placement Family: :

Homes / Agencys

Institution (GB): :
Agency: : Sailing Alone

NotesAge 21 Son of William Waterson of 19 Union St Cooks Place Norwich Norfolk England, 195236 Private
William Waterson

2nd Btn Cdn Inf (Eastern Ont. Regiment), Army
Date of Death: Died of wounds 10th August 1918
Next of Kin listed as Mrs. E Waterson, 19A Union Street, Crooks Place, Norwich, Norfolk.
Commemorated at:
Crouy British Cemetery Crouy Sur Somme, Somme, France
(information from the Maple Leaf Project)

William enlisted on October 15, 1915 in Peterborough, Ontario.

First World War medals coming home

By Galen Eagle, Peterborough Examiner
Wednesday, April 11, 2012 3:10:21 EDT AM

It's 1918 in the midst of the First World War when a young man and his Canadian infantry party were crawling through the dirty banks of a trench taking on enemy fire at close range.

The young man was an English orphan named William Waterson who came to Peterborough as a home boy at 16 to work as a farm labourer. As a member of a Peterborough militia, Mr. Waterson signed his attestation papers to join the war in October 1915 as an 18-year-old.

With his party taking on fire in the trench that day, Mr. Waterson crept within yards of an enemy post and unleashed his Lewis gun, a light Second Word War-era automatic machine gun.

That didn't effectively silence the enemy, so Mr. Waterson joined another man, worked up the trench and charged the station, killing at least 10.

That horrific account of trench warfare was found in several paragraphs in the Nov. 15, 1918 edition of the London Gazette, mere days after the end of the war.

The account was the impetus behind Mr. Waterson's awarding of the prestigious Distinguished Conduct Medal, the second highest commendation for a non-commissioned officer.

By the time that account was published, Mr. Waterson was already dead, having been killed in action Aug. 10, 1918 at the age of 21.

What happened to his medal is unknown, except that it eventually returned to England where it was put up for sale on eBay last week with two more of Mr. Waterson's war medals.

Cue Dave Thomson, a St. George, Ont. man, who has an unusual hobby. For years Thomson has been trawling eBay for Canadian war medals in an attempt to reunite them with descendants or communities. He's reunited some 585 medals across Canada.

On April 2, Thomson contacted The Examiner and local veterans advocate Dave Edgerton and a campaign was launched to purchase the medals and return them to Peterborough.

In less than a week Edgerton, the former Royal Canadian Legion Branch 52 president who spearheaded the campaign to build the Wall of Honour, had $2,900 in donations and pledges.

On Monday night, Thomson successfully convinced the British seller to remove the medals from auction and privately sell them to Edgerton for 2,000 British pounds, the equivalent of about $3,185 Canadian.

"This is a community heirloom," Thomson said. "It is going to be a good feeling for the people of Peterborough to know that they have rallied behind this and they are bringing their hero home."

The seller's grandfather had been close friends with Mr. Waterson, Thomson said, and the man was selling some possessions, having fallen on tough financial times.

"Once I told him that these were going back to Peterborough, this fellow's adopted home, (the seller) was absolutely elated. The medal was something he cherished," Thomson said. "He has had these medals for years."

Edgerton is still looking to raise another $500 to meet the price of the purchase, shipping and framing of the medals.

He is in talks with the city about having the medals mounted in the Memorial Centre, he said.

Edgerton praised Thomson's keen interest and said the medals would never have come to the attention of Peterborough residents without his help.

Thomson said he gets a thrill out of making a successful reunion.

"That's the joy I get out of this, notifying families and communities and bringing back a piece of their hero's history," he said.

Anyone interested in pledging money to the Edgerton's campaign can contact him at 705-745-9083.

Full military file online:
{website}data2.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cef/10001-11000/10122-11.pdf

Find A Grave Memorial# 56040495

ContributorsCreated : 2012-11-21 08:06:20 / From original database

Last Updated : 2015-09-03 23:25:53 / alanmack

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Readers Comments

Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 25 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
10906	BAILEY, Anthony Mansfield	1894	ENG, , Norwich	Aug 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
9276	BARHAM, Ada	1906	ENG, , Norwich	Jun 1920 : Scotian	CAN	Barnardos
16028	BARTRAM, Alfred James	1887	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Apr 1902 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
8493	BASEY, John	1899	ENG, , Norwich	May 1909 : Corsican	CAN	Barnardos
8494	BASEY, William	1900	ENG, , Norwich	May 1909 : Corsican	CAN	Barnardos
8347	BODDY, Ethel	1901	ENG, , Norwich	Mar 1914 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
8791	BOWEREN, Sidney	1898	ENG, , Norwich	Sep 1912 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
9071	BRIGHT, Frances	1913	ENG, , Norwich	Jul 1928 : Duchess of Atholl	CAN	Barnardos
8276	BURGESS, Edward	1914	ENG, , Norwich	Apr 1928 : Montclare	CAN	Barnardos
7228	COLLS, Clifford	1915	ENG, , Norwich	Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl	CAN	Barnardos
8912	GRIMWOOD, Edward W	1895	ENG, , Norwich	Oct 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
3390	HANSELL, Albert George	1895	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Mar 1910 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
10995	HASE, Valentine	1897	ENG, , Norwich	Oct 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
16966	HUMPHRIES, William Charles	1897	ENG, , Norwich	May 1911 : Corsican	CAN	Louisa Birt
5303	LUBBOCK, Geoffrey	1912	ENG, , Norwich	Aug 1930 : Duchess of York	CAN	British Immigration and Colonisation Association
3220	NORMAN, Ernest Zachariah Howlett	1888	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Jul 1900 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos	lnorman
9896	RIX, Charles Alfred	1897	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Mar 1908 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
8798	RUSHMER, Violet Hilda	1896	ENG, , Norwich	Mar 1913 : Lake Manitoba	CAN	Sailing Alone
4194	SMITH, Agnes	1890	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Jul 1902 : New England	CAN	Barnardos
4208	WAGG, Percival Ernest (Percy)	1896	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Jul 1907 : Kensington	CAN	Barnardos
10715	WANT, Frederick	1898	ENG, , Norwich	Aug 1908 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
10716	WATERSON, Gladys	1900	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Jun 1910 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
18311	WATERSON, William	1897	ENG, NFK, Norwich	May 1913 : Empress of Britain	CAN	Sailing Alone
5519	WICKS, Herbert Edgar	1898	ENG, NFK, Norwich	Sep 1907 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
7341	WOOLSEY, Cardinal	1897	ENG, , Norwich	Mar 1912 : Ascania	CAN	Unknown

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