London 25th Regt

Medal card : Sgt - London Regt. No. 740956
Medal roll : Sgt. 25th London r. Attached to Infantry Base Depot 1(a) FRance 21.8.18 to 28.8.18
Posted 10th London R. 1(a) France 29.8.18 to 21.9.18 Killed in action 21.9.18.

Obituary

We regret to announce the death of yet another 25th man - Sergeant Instructor W.A. Savage, who transferred from the third line to the 10th Londons and was killed in France about the middle of October. He was a brilliant "all rounder" who participated in every branch of sport and won numerous prizes. He was a member of the Century Road Club, and the news of his death will be received with sorrow by clubmen generally, and especially by frequenters of the Great North Road where he was a familiar figure.

[The Londoner magazine, Feb 1919 - V.III, No.2 pg.53.]

'Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914-19' under the heading "25th (County of London) Battalion (Cyclists)" :-

Savage, William Arthur, born Bristol, enlisted Stamford, 740956, Sgt., killed in action, France & Flanders, 21 Sep 1918.

St. Mary's Church, Stamford.

40956 Serjeant 25th Bn London Regiment (Cyclists).
Born Bristol
Enlisted Stamford.
Died 21st September 1918.
Age 28.
Husband of Margaret E. Savage, of Town Hall, Stamford.
Buried - Villers Hill British Cemetery, Villers-Guislain Grave II. D. 2.

[http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Lincolnshire/StamfordStMary.html]

In Memory of

Serjeant William Arthur SAVAGE

740956, 25th Bn., London Regiment (Cyclists)

who died age 28 on 21 September 1918

Husband of Margaret E. Savage, of Town Hall, Stamford.

Remembered with honour Villers Hill British Cemetery, Villers-Guislain. Grave Ref. II. D. 2.

Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Villers Hill British Cemetery, Villers-Guislain.
Villers-Guislain was occupied by Commonwealth forces from April 1917 until the German counter attacks (in the Battle of Cambrai) at the end of November 1917. It was lost on 30 November and retained by the Germans on 1 December in spite of the fierce attacks of the Guards Division and tanks. The village was finally abandoned by the Germans on 30 September 1918, after heavy fighting. Villers Hill British Cemetery was begun (as the Middlesex Cemetery , Gloucester Road ) by the 33rd Division Burial Officer on 3 October 1918, and used until the middle of October. The original cemetery (now Plot I) contained 100 graves, of which 50 belonged to the 1st Middlesex and 35 to the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Plot II and VII were added after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields and from local German cemeteries. The great majority of these graves are those of officers and men who died in April 1917, November-December 1917, March 1918 and September 1918. The cemetery now contains 732 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 350 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to seven casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate casualties buried in Gonnelieu Communal Cemetery and Honnecourt German Cemetery whose grave could not be found. The cemetery also contains 13 German burials. The cemetery was designed by Charles Holden.

Villers-Guislain is a village 16 kilometres south-south-west of Cambrai and 4 kilometres east of Gouzeaucourt, which is a large village on the main road from Cambrai to Peronne. Villers Hill British Cemetery is one kilometre south-east of the village.

[Courtesy of Commonwealth War Graves Commission]