Trafford

Born during the March quarter 1896 in the Altrincham R.D. - ref: 8a/176,
the son of Ernest and Sarah Ann Ollier (nee Hall).

1901 Census - No Trace.

1911 Census - Moorside, Knutsford.   Nephew - aged: 15 - occ: Apprentice
Cabinet Maker - born: Barnton (???), Cheshire.  Head of household - Richard
Gough - Married - aged: 35 - occ: Plasterer's Labourer - born: Runcorn,
Cheshire.   Also - Esther Gough - Wife - aged: 33 - born: Barnton.(Williams
Paternal Aunt).  Plus Williams elder brother - Frederick Ollier - aged: 17
- occ: Gardener (domestic) - born: Barnton (???), Cheshire.  Plus Thomas
Ollier (William's Paternal Grandfarther) - aged: 64 - occ: Joiner - born:
Barnton (???), Cheshire.  I believe that Barnton as his place of birth is
incorrect - it should have been Bowdon.

When he enlisted he was living with his Aunt - Esther Gough (nee Ollier)
and her husband - Richard Stephenson Gough resided at 6 Moorside,
Knutsford.   Esther was the younger sister of Ernest Ollier - (William's
father).   She and her husband - had adopted William and his brother
Frederick Ollier.

MIC - gives no information other than he was awarded the BWM & the VM,
indicating that he did not go overseas until at least 1916.

WO363 - little detail as the document is badly burnt.   Mobilised at
Chester on the 1st February 1916.   He was aged: 19 years 6 months and
employed as a French Polisher.  Transferred into the 8th Bn, Cheshire Rgt
and posted to Mesopotamia on the 22nd May 1916.   Reported as "Missing" on
the 30th April 1917 (the date on which he was taken prisoner).   His medals
were posted to Thomas Ernest Ollier (his paternal grandfather), 8 Gannon
Square, Knutsford on the 15th December 1922.

The 22/06/1917 edition of the local newspaper reported that he was missing.
  His brother - Fred Ollier was then serving with the RFA.

The Mesopotamia (Iraq) front started well as British forces continued to
march steadily up the River Tigris in 1915.  By the 28th September, with a
small British Force, they had taken the town of Glossary and with it, some
2,000 Turkish prisoners.
  
However, the tide turned quickly, during the Battle for Ctesiphon
(22nd-26th November 1915), when the Turks defeated the British Forces. 
More than half of the 8,500 British and Indian troops who fought at
Ctesiphon were killed or wounded. The survivors then endured a dangerous
and exhausting retreat to Kut-al-Amara without decent medical or transport
facilities.
   
Bolstered by 30,000 reinforcements, Turkish troops besieged British Forces
in Kut-al-Amara before the Allied troops could withdraw further down the
Tigris. The siege of Kut-al-Amara lasted 147 days, before the 11,800
British and Indian troops inside the garrison town finally surrendered on
29 April 1916.

Conditions during the siege were appalling. In bitterly cold weather and
with little medical treatment, many of the soldiers did not survive the
winter. Several attempts were made to relieve the besieged town, but they
encountered stubborn Turkish resistance and all ended in failure.  Captured
British and Indian soldiers were brutally treated on their march to Turkish
prisoner-of-war camps in Glossary.   Of the 11,800 men who left
Kut-al-Amara with their captors on the 6th May 1916, 4,250 died either on
their way to captivity or in the camps that awaited them at the journey's
end.  William was just one of those 4,250.

His mother - Sarah Ann Ollier, received financial support from the "John
Sington Fund".
 
The John Sington Fund - John Sington was the son of Adolphus Sington, a
Jewish Prussian shipping merchant who came to Britain and in 1845 became a
naturalised citizen.   Adolphus had his own company, involved originally in
the production of linen and cotton, and later the import and export of
machinery for the cotton industry.  John and at least one of his brothers
worked in their father's business in Princess Street, Manchester.

In 1885 John married Mildred Campbell Maclure, daughter of Sir John William
Maclure, Bt., who became MP for Stretford the following year.  John and
Mildred had two sons, Alan John Campbell Sington and Edward Claude Sington.
 In 1914 both sons enlisted in the British Army, and their father is listed
in The Gazette in 1915 as Major John Sington, Royal Engineers Territorial
Force Reserve.   In 1909 the Sington family moved from Whalley Range to
Dunham House, on Charcoal Road, Dunham.

When Major John Sington's two sons returned safely from active service
during WW1 he established a fund 'as a Thanksgiving Offering for their safe
return for the benefit of the wives, children and dependants of any men
who, as a result of service with His Majesty's Forces or the Mercantile
Marine, have died or been killed or disabled, and for the benefit of any
members of His Majesty's Forces or the Mercantile Marine who have been
disabled as a result of such service.'   The fund's scope was limited to
those who had been resident in the Urban District of Bowdon or the village
of Dunham Town for at least six months.

Six trustees were appointed, namely, John Bleckly, Henry Edwin Gaddum,
William Alfred Hampson, Joseph Kenworthy, Joseph Watson Sidebotham and the
Major himself.  The Clerk to the Trustees was Willis Paterson the Bowdon
UDC Solicitor, 11 Stamford Street, Altrincham to whom applications for
grants had to be made.    Information about the Fund and its beneficiaries
was kindly supplied by Cynthia Hollingworth from the records kept in
Trafford Local Studies Library.