BORN: 03 Feb 1887, Cross Keys, Monmouthshire, Wales.
UNIT: 51st Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps.
DIED: 07 Jul 1916. Killed in Action at the Battle of Albert, Somme, aged 28.
BURIED: Gordon Dump Cemetery, Ovillers-La Boisselle, Somme, France. Grave no. III.F.8.
LOCAL CONNECTIONS: Penyclawdd Cottage, Undy | Undy Church
Early life - The Cross Keys boy
William was originally from Cross Keys. He was born on 03 Feb 1887 the son of Francis ATTWELL, a miner, and his wife Margaret (nee KENVYN). William was the second of their five children. He grew up in Wattsville and went to Waunfawr School, Cross Keys. Sadly, his father Frank died in 1897 when William was aged 10. His mother then decided to christen her children all at once. So at the age of 11, William and three of his siblings were christened together in Risca church on 29 Jan 1899.
William left school aged 12 to work in the coal mines, as his elder brother David had done. Even more tragedy struck the family when his younger brother Albert died aged 9, in 1901. The widowed Margaret and her four remaining children then lived in Bright Street, Cross Keys.
William marries an Undy girl
On 27 Dec 1909, William married Cissie Susannah LEONARD at Undy parish church. He was 22 and she 20. Cissie was the daughter of Thomas Frederick LEONARD and his wife Mary Ann (nee WATKINS). The Leonard family lived on the Undy coast at Wharf Cottage (now called Penyclawdd), next to Chapel Farm. There Thomas worked as a fisherman, like his father before him. It seems that Cissie already had a daughter Henrietta Mary HARRIS who was born in 1906. She was later ‘adopted’ by William.
The 1911 census recorded William and Cissie at 2 Waunfawr Terrace, next to his old school, and two streets away from his mother and siblings in Bright Street. They had no children together at this point. William worked as a coal miner (a hewer, cutting coal at the coalface). Meanwhile, his mother had remarried in 1902 to William WYATT, a miner from Llantrisant, Glamorgan. Henrietta was with Cissie’s parents in Wharf Cottage, Undy.
A disturbance over some corned beef
The relationship between William and his step-father was not all smooth sailing. Only days after the 1911 census was taken, William ATTWELL stood in the dock at Newport Police Court. He had been summoned for assaulting his step-father. William WYATT said that the unprovoked disturbance was over some corned beef. He claimed his step-son had assaulted him violently, leaving him with a bloodied face and two black eyes. William ATTWELL pleaded guilty ‘under provocation’. His version of the story was slightly different. He told the court that his step-father had come home drunk and his mother had run round to fetch him for help. William went with his mother to her house and apparently things quietened down. He then left but when was walking past the house later, he saw his mother and step-father in a struggle. William re-entered the house and struck his step-father. He did not want to leave his mother alone and so slept at her house. The court told William that he had no right to enter the house and he was fined £3 for the assault.
William and WW1
By the time WW1 broke out in 1914, William’s older brother David had also died. When William enlisted on 02 Nov 1915, he gave his address as The Causeway, Undy; presumably he meant Wharf Cottage. By now he was aged 28.
His military medical said he was 5’ 6” (1.7m) tall and weighing 9 stone (57 Kg). He had a scar on the little finger of his right hand. He was based in the UK at first but on 15 March 1916 he sailed from Southampton for France aboard the SS Queen Alexandria. Within a week, he was posted to the 51st Field Ambulance. Within four months he had died.
The 51st Field Ambulance
A Field Ambulance was a mobile medical unit that served in the front line (and not a vehicle!). William’s unit would have formed an evacuation chain that carried casualties from the battlefield, first to Regimental Aid Posts through Bearer Relay Posts to Advanced Dressing Stations and then onto the Main Dressing Station. Technically, each unit would be responsible for about 150 casualties, but usually had to deal with a lot more.
Being a member of the RAMC required tremendous courage. William must have seen more than his fair share of horrific injuries and terrified men in the trenches, as these extracts from ‘Twenty Years After the Battlefields of 1914-18, Then and Now (Supplementary Volume)’ show:
In the night a cry: “Stretcher bearers wanted! Volunteers!” You crawl through the trenches, and find a group of men hit in a traverse, and apply field-dressings, and tourniquets – rough-and-ready work under fire. The first consideration is: to get them out. Going up with the empty stretcher, with shells “plonking” over and machine guns and shrapnel spraying the trenches, you feel shivery and shaky; but immediately you get your man on board you are steady as a rock…
‘… The procession moves off, four men to a stretcher, with four miles to go, knee-deep in mud most of the way. When the shells pitch over in salvoes you see bearers put the stretcher down and cover the wounded man with their own bodies…’
William is Killed in Action
William’s unit was attached to the 17th (Northern) Division who were part of the famous attack on Mametz Wood alongside the 38th (Welsh) Division. Mametz was part of the Battle of Albert, in the Somme (01 July – 13 July 1916). The first day of the battle alone saw 58,000 British casualties.
At 2 a.m. on 07 Jul 1916, the 17th and 38th Divisions attacked towards Mametz and Contalmaison but the German counter attack pushed them back. Advancing reinforcements were hit by machine gun fire from Mametz Wood.
William volunteered to rescue the wounded and carry them to safety. He was killed when a shell exploded above him as he carried out this dangerous task. Major George Ferguson of the RAMC wrote to Cissie to explain how her husband had died:
‘…At the time of his death your husband was one of a stretcher squad at work clearing wounded from a support trench, when a large shell burst just above the party, killing him instantly and wounding and burying several others. His body was found later, and he has been buried near where he fell. It may be some consolation to you to know that they did magnificent work during a hard time, and that he met a soldier’s death, trying to help others in a very exposed place, a work for which he had volunteered.’
William's two burials
William was originally buried in a field south-west of Contalmaison, about 1 mile west of Mametz Wood. However, his body was later exhumed and buried in Gordon Dump Cemetery, Oviller-la-Boiselle, about 1.5 miles to the west. After WW1 ended in November 1918 graves were scattered throughout the region. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission searched the battlefields for small cemeteries and isolated burials. The soldiers’ bodies were then moved to larger ‘concentration’ cemeteries. William was one of 1600 men moved to Gordon Dump. William’s grave is at location III.F.8.
Medals and Pension
William’s belongings were sent to his widow, Cissie, at Wharf Cottage, Undy. She received a war pension of 15 shillings per week from January 1919.
William was awarded the British War and Victory campaign medals. They were sent to his widow Cissie in 1922. By this time she had married Ernest TAYLOR. They lived in North Road, Risca, Monmouthshire.
Cissie died in 1969 at the age of 79. William’s adopted daughter Henrietta Mary HARRIS died in Risca in 1992.
