Lance Corporal. 9th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. Service number 28681.
Early life:
William was born in Oakworth in 1897, registered in Keighley in the second quarter of the year. His parents were Leonard Roe and Grace Roe née Collyer who were married in 1890.
In the 1901 census William was three and living at Goose Cote Farm in Oakworth with his parents, sister Alice aged 21, a dressmaker; brothers Abraham aged ten and Thomas aged eight. The youngest was Hannah aged just four months. Their father Leonard was a farmer.
In 1911 he was thirteen years old and still living at Goose Cote Farm with his parents, two brothers and one sister. Father Leonard was still a farmer, on his own account. William was a grocer’s apprentice.
War service:
William was likely to have been a conscientious objector, we found a Military Tribunal record which unusually stated the name of the objector:
Keighley News 1st April 1916 page 5:
William Roe, Another conscientious objector, 18 years of age, a grocer and corn dealer’s assistant, had held the views on war which be now held ever since he had opinions on anything.
IF THE GERMANS CAME
Mr. Foster: If you saw a man shoot your mother would you give information to the police or give evidence against him?
Applicant: If I did, it would mean his life. I would not.
Mr. Foster: Would you let him go free even if he shot your mother?
The Chairman: That is rather a severe question.
Mr. Foster (to applicant): Do you want to see England win?
Applicant: I don’t know that it will make any difference.
Do you think the Germans would respect your opinions if they came?
I cannot say what they would do.
Do you know what they have done in Belgium or Serbia, and are they not just as likely to do that here!
For anything I know they are, but that does not alter my convictions.
The application was refused.
William was serving with the 9th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment when he was killed by a shell along with a comrade (Lance Corporal George Roe from Heckmondwike). He was twenty years old at the time and had been in service for less than a year, having enlisted at Halifax on May 27, 1916, probably in response to receiving his call-up papers.
He has no known grave, and is named on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing in the Somme region of France.
War diary entry for 9th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment. January 1917.
16th January:
BEAUCORT. Enemy artillery very active. Casualties – 1 man of working party wounded.
17th January:
BEAUCORT. Left sector was ordered to advance it’s line, taking some German dugouts around ARTILLERY ALLEY, PATIENCE ROAD, and establish posts at heads of LONG BANKS in R.1.d. Attack commenced on morning of 17th at 6.35 am. The Battalion being in support to 6th Yorkshire Regiment and 6th York and Lancaster Regiment. All objectives were taken and consolidated, no counter attack was made by Germans.
18th January:
BEAUCORT. Night passed quietly.
Keighley News report:
OAKWORTH. “THE LONG ARM OF COINCIDENCE.”
The “Long arm of coincidence” has seldom stretched further during the war than in the case of two soldiers names Roe – one, Will Roe, of Bogthorn, Oakworth; the other, George Roe, of White Lea, Heckmondwike. They had no traceable relationship, both were 20 years of age, both worked for a cooperative society; joined the colours on the same day, were drafted to the same regiment, became chums, received their lance-corporal stripe on the same day, were buried by the same shell on one occasion, and met their death at the same moment by another shell last month.
Post war:
William was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for his war service.
Remembrance:
William is named on the Oakworth War Memorial in Holden Park at Oakworth, and on the Bogthorn Methodist Chapel Sunday School roll of honour, of their young men who served in the Great War.
He is also named on the family grave in Slack Lane Baptist Chapel graveyard.
Note: the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has nine men for the 9th Bn. West Yorkshire Regiment who were killed in action on this date. All are named on the Thiepval Memorial. These nine men are:
40929 Private James Claven.
33461 Lance Corporal Walter Hodgson.
28265 Private Frank Kershaw aged 37.
22235 Corporal Ernest Methley aged 20.
19453 Private Samuel Pinches.
45738 Private Percy Ranger.
28670 Lance Corporal George Roe aged 19.
28681 Lance Corporal William Roe aged 18.
45740 Private Thomas Sains.
