Howell Williams was the half brother of my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Ann Williams.  

Elizabeth Williams was born in Briton Ferry in 1882. Her Mother died giving birth to her.

Elizabeth’s Father, John Williams was a railway porter. By 1888  he had moved to Moss Side, Manchester and remarried. 

With his new wife, Mary, he had a son, Howell who was born in 1888 and a daughter, Rachel born in 1895. Elizabeth stayed behind in Briton Ferry with her Aunt and Uncle who ran a Grocers shop and she later married. Howell and Elizabeth kept in touch over the years and I have a collection of cards from Howell to Elizabeth.

Howell became a Warehousemen’s clerk and became engaged to Emily McCracken.

Howell joined the 17th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment.

Before he left to join the army, Howell married Emily in January 1917 in Chorlton Manchester.

After joining the army, Howell continued to write to his sister in Briton Ferry.

He sent her a very brief card Jan 16th 1917 while he was at Brocklesby Camp in Lincolnshire to let her know he was leaving for France that day.

The next letter was written by Howell in France on March 3rd 1917.

 He says that he is very well and has little to grumble about. His has not yet had to go into the line.  

His Battalion had been engaged for about 4 weeks on fatigue work behind the lines working with a pick and shovel which was a shock for him as he had been ‘Used to swinging a pen’ all his life.

He knew that his Brother in law, Will would find that funny as Will grew up on a farm and spent his working life in the steel works.

The next letter is from Howell’s new wife Emily writing on April 10th 1917 from their married home, 18 Cadogan Street, Moss Side, Manchester.

Emily talks about the weather and how she misses Howell even more than usual as they always took a trip into the countryside over Easter.

Howell was obviously a regular letter writer as she was concerned that she had not received a letter from him for 5 days.

The Battle of Arras started on April 9th 1917.

Emily’s letter was written the following day. She was worried about ‘Today’s News’. Emily says that her faith was a great consolation to her during this time

She also talks about day to day news. She has not had any potatoes for over a week and last week did not have any coal for the week but has lots of sugar.

On May 21st 1917, Howell’s Mother Mary & his Sister Rachel wrote to Elizabeth from their home: 10 South Hall Street, Salford

They said that they had not heard from Howell for about a Month.

A week before, they received notification from The War Office that he had been wounded on April 23rd.

They were making enquiries but cannot find any further info.

The note they received from War Office did not give any other details.

The last letter in the collection was written  on August 12th 1917 by Howell’s wife Emily. She thanks her sister in law Elizabeth for her recent letter and invitation to visit her.

Emily says how fond she is of Elizabeth’s children. One of the great disappointments of her life is that she doesn’t think that she will now be able to have children.

The family haven’t heard any more about Howell but when they make enquiries with the War Office, all they were told was that Howell’s regiment went over the top on the morning of April 23rd and failed to return. Emily hasn’t given up and still hopes and prays that they might still hear from him.

 

I used to look at these letters when I was young and once took them into school but I don’t have any more letters and didn’t know how the story ended. Until – The internet was invented.

In 2002, I searched the War Graves Commission website and found that Howell had in fact died on the 23rd of April 1917.

Although it might not seem to be a happy ending, it brought his story to a close.

My next task is to try to find out what happened to Emily.

Did she remarry, or like many women of her generation, remain a widow for the rest of her life?

I hope that this story was not too sad. We are all aware of the millions of men & women who died in WW1 and it is too easy to focus on the numbers and not on the people as individuals.

I wanted to write about Howell to put a human face on these terrible statistics and to show that each and every person had a story of their own.

Kevin Griffiths