|
|
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Pte. William Thomas Riley Burfield
British Army 6th Btn., D Coy. Somerset Light Infantry
from:43 Townsend, Montacute, Somerset
William Burfield was born on 1st of October 1877 in Blaenavon in Wales, but moved to Taunton (and later Yeovil) as a boy with his family. In 1903 he married (Florence) Ethel Hockey in Norton-sub-Hamden and they had five children: Wilfred b.1903, Daisy b.1906, Leslie b.1910, Nora b.1914 and (Stanley) Norman b.1919.William was a painter and decorator by trade and signed up for the Yeovil Territorials before WW1 started. The Yeovil Territorials were incorporated into the 6th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry when war broke out and, despite already being 37 years old, William joined up (he may have lied about his age and claimed to be 34 in 1914 and not 37 as he really was). William was a very fit man for his age and he first saw action in France in August 1915 in D company, and he fought on the Western front for two years before being invalided out of the Somerset Light Infantry in August 1917 at Ypres at the age of 39.
Thereafter he served out his time in the Labour Corps before returning home to Montacute where he died of pneumonia on 1st March 1921, aged just 43. According to his son Wilfred, William's lungs were damaged in the Great War (presumably by gas) and this may have been a contributory factor in his death at what was a relatively young age.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
The Wartime Memories Project Website
is archived for preservation by the British Library
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.
