William Sommerville was born Robert William Collings in St Pancras, London on the 15th June 1879. He was the youngest child and only son of Robert Collings and Harriet Anne Frost and he had four older sisters. His siblings were: Elizabeth Charlotte Florence, Lilian Gertrude, Esther Agnes and Maude Maria.

William’s father Robert died in 1880 leaving his wife Harriet with four children under ten years old. Harriet married four year’s after her first husband’s death to Charles John Sommerville a “Joiner” and by 1891, William was living with his parents in Wood Green, North London and had adopted his step father’s surname Sommerville.

Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War in October 1899, William enlisted with the City of London Imperial Volunteers, one of the many volunteer corps established to provide officers and men for service in South Africa. All the officers and men received the Freedom of the City of London before their departure.

The corps was part of the huge force assembled to relieve Kimberley on the 15th February 1900, and came under fire for the first time during actions at Jacobsdal the following day. William served from January to October 1900 and returned to England just before the corps was disbanded on the 1st December of the same year.

Following service in the Second Boer War, William was again living with his step-father in Wood Green in 1901. At this time his mother was an inmate in Edmonton workhouse nearby and research suggests she was suffering from illness and could not be cared for at home. Coincidentally, William’s sister Maude Maria was working as an Officer in another Union Workhouse in 1901 and she would go on to qualify as a midwife in 1903. William was working as a Machinist in a Shirt Factory.

Two years later on the Saturday, 25th April 1903, he married Alice Swallow at St Anne’s Parish Church in Islington. William and Alice had three daughters together, Alice Louise Collings, Maud Collings and Doris Collings. Shortly after Doris’ birth the family moved to Apsley End and William started work as a “Wood Sawyer” at John Dickinson and Co. Ltd. The family lived at 21 Weymouth Street in Apsley End.

William was amongst the first great surge of volunteers after the defeat at Mons and he enlisted in late August in the 1st Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment. Following his basic training he left for France, disembarking on the 2nd February 1915 before joining his battalion in billets at Bailleul on the 8th February. He saw action in the trenches in France before moving with the Battalion to the Ypres salient early in March 1915.

Here he was engaged with his comrades at the Second Battle of Ypres, defending Hill 60 where two days before the end of this engagement, William was killed on the 5th May 1915. He was one of 290 men from the 1st Battalion killed or injured on the 5th and 6th of May.

William’s name is spelled incorrectly as “Somerville” on the Hemel Hempstead War Memorial when all other records researched spell his name as “Sommerville” including the John Dickinson War Memorial in Apsley where he is also commemorated.

He is Remembered with Honour at Ypres, Belgium on the Menin Gate Memorial, Panels 31 and 33.

William was 35 years old when he was killed.

He was eligible for the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.