PRIVATE 381067 JOHN GILBERT WILLIAM VAUGHAN, 85th COMPANY, LABOUR CORPS. DIED OF WOUNDS, 18TH JANUARY 1918.


PRIVATE 381067 JOHN GILBERT WILLIAM VAUGHAN, 85th COMPANY, LABOUR CORPS. DIED OF WOUNDS, 18TH JANUARY 1918.


Born in the Herefordshire village of Eardisley, William was the middle of 3 sons born to farmer Gilbert Vaughan and his wife Agnes. Most of his early life was spent in Herefordshire where he worked variously as a servant and shop assistant.

By 1911 William had moved to Yorkshire, where he was employed at the Oxford Hotel in Harrogate at a boot cleaner. Whilst at The Oxford he met Agnes Flanigan, an Irish girl who also worked in the hotel and together they were married in Otley in 1915. The newly married couple moved into Ilkley and took a house on Ashgrove and William was employed at the Marlborough Hydro Hotel on Clifton Road.
On 30th August 1916 William was conscripted into the 9th Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment and after training joined his unit in France on the 10th February 1917. However, by 1st May he was back in England for treatment in hospital. It is unclear whether this was because of wounds or illness, nevertheless he remained at home until 27th July.
Upon his return to France he was assigned to a company of the Labour Corps. This was a unit which did much of the manual work behind the lines and was made up of men who were unfit for front line duty. On 6th January William was working near to the trenches when a shell landed nearby injuring him in the abdomen and neck. A chaplain wrote to his wife Agnes, back in Ilkley, telling her that her husband had been badly injured and that sadly he had died on the 18th of the month. William was the second of the Vaughan brothers to be killed in the war, his younger brother Arthur had been killed on the Somme in July 1916.
Today Private William Vaughan lies in the British Military Cemetery at Mendinghem and is remembered with pride on our war memorial here in Ilkley
Photo from the Ilkley Free Press courtesy James Cooper.




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