Tomorrow we remember Private William Wyer of the 9th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. A Haconby man killed in action on the 14th July 1916. He lies in a corner of a foreign field on the Somme and is commemorated on the Haconby memorial.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission:
In Memory of Private W Wyer, 14004, 9th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment who died on 14 July 1916.
Remembered with Honour Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt-L’abbe
Grave Ref: II.B.34
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Haconby man Robert Wilson Wyer who made the ultimate sacrifice on the 3rd July 1916.
Robert grew up in Haconby, the son of a farm labourer and moved to Oldham by 1911 living with his uncle and working as a labourer there.
He, like so many of Haconby’s young men enlisted and joined the 7th battalion of the Lincolnshire Regiment.
Robert was killed in action on the 3rd July 1916 giving his ultimate sacrifice in the first days of the battle of the Somme.
Robert is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing of the Somme and on the Haconby war memorial.
Lest we forget
On this day 100 years ago a brave young man from Morton was killed in action on the first day of The Battle of the Somme.
2nd Lieutenant William Swift had been a pupil teacher at Bourne School, passed teacher training at Peterborough and gained entry into Cambridge before volunteering for the Army.
He was trained with the 8th Bn Lincolnshire Regiment and was posted with his Battalion to France.
More of the story of the 8th Lincolnshire’s and William Swift can be found on his page on this site.
William Swift is buried at the Gordon Dump Cemetary at Orviliers-La-Boiselle, and remembered on the Morton War Memorial.
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