William Evelyn Wansbrough was born in Lincoln on 11 November 1893, moved to Birmingham in 1906, and attended King Edward’s School as a Foundation Scholar until July 1911. Evelyn had in mind a career like his father’s, in engineering and technology, and although not spectacular his school career was modestly distinguished and he won a school prize for ‘laboratory work’ in July 1911. In addition to physics and chemistry he also studied German, French, and Latin. After leaving school he followed the family interest in engineering and enrolled as an apprentice in the General Electric Company at their innovative Witton works established in 1903.

 

Evelyn’s principal extracurricular activity at school was membership of the Officers’ Training Corps, in which he progressed to the rank of Cadet Corporal. After leaving school he enlisted as a volunteer in the Territorial Force of the South Staffordshire Regiment, being gazetted as a probationary Second Lieutenant on 4 May 1912.

 

On the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914 Evelyn’s battalion was immediately embodied and he left for France within two weeks.  He took part, as a Second Lieutenant, in the retreat from Mons at the end of August, and was wounded at the Battle of the Aisne on 11 October 1914. He returned to England and married Gladys Skelsey by Special Licence at St Agnes’ Church in Moseley (near the Wansbrough family home) on 31 December 1914. His father and Gladys’ brother Harold were the witnesses.

 

The newly-wed Wansbrough couple can never have spent more than a few days together. Evelyn returned to France and his battalion eventually moved to the Somme Front, entering Delville Wood on 27 July 1916. During two days of desperate fighting there the Battalion lost many of their young officers including Evelyn (by then a Captain) who was killed by a shell on 28 July, aged 22. This was reported in the Birmingham Daily Poston 4 August (the second anniversary of the outbreak of war), and in The Timesthe following day. 

 

Evelyn’s body was never identified and his name appears on the monument to the missing at Thiepval, a few miles north of Delville Wood. He is also commemorated on a tablet inside the School Chapel, moved from its original site in New Street after the Second World War. Elsewhere he is recorded several times, including on the dignified war memorial inside St Mary’s Parish Church in Moseley, and also in St Agnes’ Church, Moseley, which is near the family home and where he had been married. 

 

 

Geoffrey Skelsey