World War 1
Search the known records to date of those lost from the wider Alnwick area in World War 1
Generally showing where they are commemorated, when they died and some basic facts about each person. There are gaps, however, so if you can fill in any missing details do please contact us.
William Forster
Forename(s):
William
Surname:
Forster
Initial(s):
W
Service Number:
10497
Rank:
Private
Regiment:
Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), 8th (Service) Battalion
Died:
07/10/1916
Buried:
Thiepval Memorial
Service History:
Enlisted at London, in February 1916. 'The Valley Remembers' records Forster's unit as 3rd Battalion but the CWGC website has it as the 8th.
Fell near Gueudecourt during the 1916 Battles of the Somme.
(Source: 'The Valley Remembers'; Edited by Sandy Hunter; Upper Coquetdale WW1 Project; 2014; p.25)
Background:
Although Forster lived from much of his short life away from the Coquet Valley, Burradon, Rothbury was the family home. It was in the ownership of his father who had been born at Scrainwood, son of Thomas Forster of Scrainwood & Burradon. He practiced as a Solicitor at Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland until his appointment in 1916 as Clerk of the Peace & Clerk to Northumberland County Council.
Forster was born on 28 November 1892, at Jesmond, Newcastle, the second son of Charles Davison Foster & his wife, Annie Mary, daughter of Thomas Thornton of Felton House, St. John's Wood, London. He was one of eight surviving children.
At the turn of the century, the family was living at Glanton, Northumberland but, by 1904, Forster was at school at Downside & in 1910 was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge where, in 1913, he graduated BA & LLB. He was then an Articled Clerk in the London law practice, Coward & Hawksley, Sons & Chance, a forerunner of today's global firm, Clifford Chance. He was living at Harrow, until his enlistment into the Royal Fusiliers in February 1916.
At the time of Forster's death, the family lived at 89, Jesmond Road, Newcastle.
(Source: 'UK, De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour 1914-1918'; Part 2; p. 123; Also, 'The Valley Remembers'; Edited by Sandy Hunter; Upper Coquetdale WW1 Project; 2014; p. 25)
Local Memorial:
Alwinton, St. Michael & All Angels' Church
(Source: newmp.org.uk)
Netherton, brass plaque mounted in the Memorial Hall
Thropton, stained-glass memorial window in the Roman Catholic Church of All Saints
(Source: For Netherton & Thropton, 'The Valley Reme
