Rifleman. 1/8th Battalion Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). Service number 205176.
Early life:
William was born in 1883, registered in Bradford in the second quarter of the year. Parents Joseph and Hannah
Priestley. He was baptised on July 1 at Prospect Street Wesleyan chapel in Bradford.
In 1891 he was seven and living at 17, Bradford Road, East Bowling in Bradford with his parents. His father Joseph was a wool warehouseman.
By 1911 he was twenty-seven, living with his wife Lily Priestley (née Davy) at 277, New Hey Road, off Wakefield Road in Bradford. He was working in the pattern room at a safe merchants.
War service:
William enlisted at Keighley with the 1/8th West Yorkshire Regiment, service number 205176.
He was killed in action on October 9, in 1917 when he was shot in the neck by a sniper. He was 34 years old. He has no known grave and is remembered on the Tyne Cot memorial.
War diary of the 1st 8th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment:
8th October. VLAMERTINGHE. The morning was taken up by moving to St JEAN where dinners were taken and sandbags bombs and other stores drawn. At 5 p.m. in heavy rain the Battalion, being the third in the Brigade moved off to the assembly positions. This entailed a 12 hour march in single file along trench grids. Owing to the darkness, gaps in the grids and halts, the rear company only arrived in assembly position for the attack west of PASSCHENDAELE five minutes before ZERO. In spite of almost insufferable difficulties of weather conditions & ground the Battalion advanced under the barrage towards its objectives. B & C Companies were detailed for the point, A & D for the second objective. Owing to high casualties amongst officers & NCO’s the position became obscure. Much hostile machine gun fire & sniping was encountered & eventually the Battalion dug itself in short of it’s first objective after an advance of about 300 yards. H.Q. were established at KRONPRINZ FARM. The commanding officer Lt. Colonel R. A. Hudson D.S.O. was killed early in the attack & the command devolved upon Major Brooke M.C. the
Adjutant, who at one time had only two officers beside himself available. Out of the 23 (including the Medical officer) officers who went in with the unit eight were killed, eight were wounded, one missing and two wounded but remained at duty, this includes two liaison officers, 301 Casualties amongst other ranks.
Keighley News October 20, 1917 page 3:
Rifleman W. H. Priestley, of the West Yorkshire Regiment, who has only been in France a short time, was shot by a sniper through the neck early this week. Mrs Priestley, with her two children, reside at present with her mother at Joseph Street.
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Remembrance:
William is remembered on the Oakworth War Memorial at Holden Park in Oakworth, Oakworth Wesleyan Methodist Chapel Roll of Honour, and on the family grave in Oakworth Cemetery:
Oakworth cemetery: Also of Wm. Herbert, beloved husband of Lily Priestley, who was killed in action Oct 9th 1917. Aged 34 years. “Love is Eternal”
William’s name was added to the Oakworth Great War Centenary roll of honour which was unveiled for permanent display in November 2019 at Oakworth Community Hall.
Post war:
William was posthumously awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for his war service. These would have been sent to Lily as she was his next of kin.
Lily was later living at 8, Mount View, Oakworth when she responded to the letter from the Imperial war graves commission.
She received a dependant’s pension for herself and the two children, of 22 shillings and 11 pence per week, from the 29th April 1918. For the children this would have lasted until their sixteenth birthdays.
In the 1921 census she was 26 and living at 8b Mount View in Oakworth with Marjorie aged nine and Herbert Victor aged six.
In the 1939 register she was aged 44 and living at 26, Mount View in Oakworth with their children Marjorie aged 27 and Herbert Victor aged 24. Also living with them was Lily’s mother Emma Davy, a retired widow aged 85.
Lily died on February 21 in 1966, aged eighty-one. She never remarried.
Marjorie became an elementary school teacher and married Arnold Sharp in the summer of 1940.
She died in 1998 and Arnold died in 2002. They are buried together at Oakworth Cemetery.
Herbert also became a school teacher and was employed at a school in Coventry in the 1939 register. He married nurse and midwife Sarah Phyllis Johnson at Pontefract in 1941.
Herbert died at Coventry on 18th February 1969 and Sarah died at Leeds on 25th July 1986
