Service Life:

Campaigns:

• The First World War 1914-1918, World-wide.

Natural causes is attributed those deaths due to causes that were not directly associated with the war. Included in this are wartime deaths resulting from, for example, theSpanish Influenza pandemic and its associated pneumonia problems and other attributions such as age and exhaustion. It also groups those who through Post Traumatic Stress committed suicide as a result of their experiences.

Detail :

1002, Sergeant William Pattinson, 18th (Service) Battalion Durham Light Infantry (1st County). Later died of wounds received in action.

An article, entitled "VETERAN DIES HERE," is published in the Hagerstown Daily Mail 24th September, 1918. It reads:- "In our Hospital at 10:45 this morning died a British veteran, William D. Pattinson, of wounds and gas injuries he received in the battle of the Somme, in France in the spring of 1916. After the battle he was taken to base hospital, then to his home at Maryport, Eng., wherefrom he enlisted and where he was a member of the Perseverance Lodge of Masons, and then, in the hope that the sea and change would do him good, came to this country to visit his aunt, Mrs. Wm. H Wilson, Washington Square, this city, wife of the well known merchant there. At first he felt better and gained but the anemia which afflicted him gained ground and he got weaker, and was taken to the Hospital for special treatment. He could not rally and so at the age of 29, one of the heroes of the Somme, where German advance was checked finally and decisively in blood and by the loss of many gallant English lives offered as a sacrifice for the freedom of the World, he, bravely fighting, fell. A wave of gas from the demon hordes of his foes and machine gun shots overcame him. He has no other relatives in this country than Mrs. Wilson. He was a fine and splendid young man. He, after enlistment, was promoted to Sergeant of the Durham Infantry and served his country well."

A much more detailed account and biography can be found at WW1 Sacrifice.

William is one of twelve casualties of the First World War commemorated on the Crosscanonby War Memorial at the Church of St. John the Evangelist. He is further commemorated on a window in the Washington Square Methodist Church, which had been presented by William and Sarah Wilson.

Masonic :

William was listed as a 25 year old Schoolmaster at Maryport, Cumberland at the time of his initiation in 1914, completing his steps prior to the commencement of hostilities. He died just before the war ended in the United States; the final comment in the contribution register recorded "Died Sept 1918."

Source :

The project globally acknowledges the following as sources of information for research across the whole database:

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• The (UK) National Archives
• Ancestry.co.uk - Genealogy, Family Trees & Family History online
• ugle.org.uk - The records of the United Grand Lodge of England including the Library and Museum of Freemasonry

Additional Source:

• Founder Researchers : Paul Masters & Mike McCarthy
• Researcher : Bruce Littley