William Batchelor, known as Willie, was born in Hemel Hempstead in 1893 and was baptised at St Paul’s Church on Sunday, 19th March in the same year. He was the son of Isaac Batchelor and Sarah Russell who had a large family of nine together. The children were: Lizzie (Eliza), Henry, Frederick, Annie, Elizabeth Jane, Florence, Minnie, William, Hilda Mary. Henry died in 1883 aged six and his father Isaac died in 1914 aged sixty-three. His brother-in-law, Edward Bilby was killed at Ypres just two weeks before William fell. Edward’s biography also appears on this site.

William left school in 1905 and started work with John Dickinson & Co. Limited in Apsley Mills where he was as a ‘Band Cutter’. It was here that he first me Laura Bilby who worked as an ‘Envelope Folder’. They became sweethearts and in 1914 they were married and their only child Dorothy was born later the same year.  Willie was called up under the Military Service Act in June 1915 and went to attest at Hertford in December. There he enlisted in the Hertfordshire Regiment and was immediately sent for basic training. In June 1917 he was sent to France and posted to the 8th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment.

The 8th Battalion had suffered terribly at the Battle of Loos in September 1915 when twenty-two of its twenty-four officers were killed. 471 other ranks were killed, wounded or missing, resulting in the Battalion being taken out of the line and into billets to receive replacements. The Battalion engaged in training, periods of work on trench defences, periodical tours of the trenches and working parties. It was over a year before the unit strength was sufficient to go back into the Front line. At the Battle of Ancre the Battalion again suffered high casulaties and throughout early 1917 new drafts arrived from other regiments to again rebuild the unit.

In April of the 8th Lincolnshires fought in the Second Battle of the Scarpe and for a third time incurred severe casualties. Bewteen the 24th and 28th April, 467 men were Killed, Wounded or Missing and once more the Battalion was taken out of the line. Willie joined his new comrades on the 12th June as rebuilding continued and almost at once he moved with the Battalion. It marched to Flanders and took up new positions at Lindenhoek to the south-west of Ypres. By the end of June he was in the trenches as the preparations for the the attack on Pilckem Ridge progressed. He fought in and survived the Battle of Pilckem Ridge where the 8th Battalion Lincolnshires lost 177 men.

Early August brought some respite as the Battalion rested or paraded, until on the 15th of the month it relieved the 11th East Lancs. in the trenches. The Germans began to lay down a barrage of constant shell fire on the Lincolnshires positions which resulted in daily casualties. On the second day there were thirty-four men killed, wounded or missing and the unfortunate Willie Batchelor was among this number.

He was killed on Thursday, 16th August 1917 having been in France for only seventy-one days.

Willie is commemorated on the John Dickinson & Co. Limited War Memorial in Apsley, and on the memorial scroll in St. Paul's Church in Highfield.

Willie is remembered with Honour on Tyne Cot Memorial, West Vlaanderen, Belgium, Panel 35 to 37 and 162 to 162A

He was 24 years old when he died.

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