William Hall was born in Hemel Hempstead on Saturday, 6th July 1889 and baptised on Sunday, 2nd March 1890 at St Paul’s church where his parents worshipped. He was the oldest child born to William Hall and Martha Seabrook who had a total of seven children together over a period of twenty-six years. The children were: William, Thomas, Arthur John, Gertrude Elizabeth, Minnie Edith, Ernest George and finally, Sidney born in 1916 when his mother Martha was forty years of age. Three of William’s siblings died young: Thomas shortly after his birth in 1891 and Arthur and Gertrude, aged four and three respectively, in 1905.

William grew up on Cotterells in Hemel Hempstead, where his father William worked as a butcher, and in 1895 six-year-old William started at Bury Mill End, the local school. He completed his first ‘standard’ there before joining Boxmoor JMI school in 1898 just before his ninth birthday. He successfully completed the other six ‘standards’ before he left Boxmoor on the 5th July 1902, the day before his thirteenth birthday. He immediately began work for his father as a ‘Butcher’s Boy’.

He did not remain in the butchering trade for long and instead went to work for John Dickinson & Co. Limited at Nash Mills where he met his future wife. Daisy Jorden was a local girl from Boxmoor where she lived on St John’s Road, the second born and eldest of five sisters. Daisy, her older brother and three of her sisters also worked at Dickinsons. William and Daisy married in Hemel Hempstead in late 1913 and just over fourteen months later they had their only child William, who sadly died only three days after being born on the 16th January 1915.

William enlisted in the Colours in April 1916 when he attested at Watford and joined the East Surrey Regiment. It is not clear when William went to France, but it was likely have been between August 1916 and the end of the year. When he did go, he was transferred to the 1st Battalion The Queen’s (Royal West Surrey Regiment) which was in the 100th Brigade under the orders of 33rd Division.

By June 1917 William was near Messines with his comrades and in frontline trenches engaged in actions on the Hindenburg Line. Towards the end of the month he participated on a concerted attack on the enemy’s trenches and it was during this action that he was killed. William died on Friday, 29th June 1917 at Croisilles, 11 miles (17kms) south of Arras.

He is commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited war memorial in Apsley.

William is Remembered with Honour on Arras Memorial, Pas-de-Calais, France, Bay 2.

He was 27 years old when he died.

William was eligible for the British War Medal and the Allied Victory Medal.