Willie, as he was known by the family, was born in Killargue, Co. Leitrim, Ireland. He grew up in Manorhamilton, where his family owned the Castle Bar, located opposite the Sir Frederick Hamilton's castle from which the town takes its name. His mother and my Great Grandmother were sisters (Stuarts). Willie, by all accounts, was an extremely likable boy, very kind and a favourite of my late grandmother's. He was a regular attender at the parish chruch and, as his mother wrote after his death she "reared him for God and is sure he had gone to be with Him now, free from strife and pain" 

Willie joined the Royal Inniskillings out of a sense of duty. My grandmother's family were extremely loyal to the empire and this reflected in Willie's determination to "do his bit." Sadly, he was never to return to those who loved him.

We know from the fragments of surviving letters from his C.O. approximately what happened. Willie had been tending the wounds of some of his comrades when his senior officer, Cpt Irwin, observed some fellow soliders advancing in the wrong direction and toward certain danger. Willie at once volunteered to go and warn them. He had advanced some distance when he was fatally wounded. Irwin, apparently, tried to help him but the most he could do was give Willie some morphine to ease the pain and he died where he fell, at Ypres on 17th August 1917. 

His comrades apparently wrote many letters to his mother, from which we know she took great comfort and it is clear, from the accounts of these, that Willie's natural charm and good nature had endeared him to his fellow soldiers as much as it had done to his family and friends back home. The vicar took the unusual step of reading out a selection of these at his memorial service, which would seem to indicate just how beloved he was, of so many.

Willie was posthumously awarded the Military Medal for his "acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire".  

Sadly his remains were never recovered. All that remains to commemorate his brief, but beautiful life, are an inscription on the Tyne Cot memorial and a palque in Lurganboy chapel-of-ease, outside Manorhamilton, where he and his family attended reguarly. 

I think it says something that, ninety seven years later, his memory still lives with pride and affection in our family.

"When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot

Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,

And flowers will shine in this now barren plot

And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss."

                                                             J.W.Streets

Thomas W. Scott Golden