Driver William Shannon.
T/32419, 431st Coy. Army Service Corps (MT).
Died 30th October 1917. Aged 21.
(By kind permission of Daniel Swainston)
William was born in the Dec quarter of 1894 in Wigan, The son of John Shannon and Charlotte Atherton. In the 1901 census the family was lodging at a commercial lodging house in Union St Wigan. John 43, Charlotte 40, Thomas 16, Martha 11, Elizabeth 8 and William 5.
The family lived at 9 Croft St by the time of the 1911 census. John 46, Charlotte 50, Thomas 27, William 15, Elizabeth 17, Mary 5, and Martha 20. John and Charlotte had been married 29 years and had had 13 children 8 of whom had died.
William enlisted on the 16th Aug 1914.
From The Express and Advertiser dated 14 August 1915: THE DEATH ROLL. THOROUGHLY DESERVED. COMRADES TRIBUTE TO BURNLEY SOLDIER.
...................................... (last para of article re death of F Clarke) Mrs Clarke is a Burnley young woman and is left with two little children, a boy aged 3 years and 4 months and a girl aged one year and 3 months. Her brother, Private Thomas Shannon, of the East Lancashire Regiment, was killed in action in France, in May. Her father is in the King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, and her younger brother private William Shannon, is serving with the ASC..................
Lived at 12 Cross Street.
William left his effects to his mother, Charlotte, sisters, Mrs Elizabeth McLoughlin and Martha Stoll.
William was buried in Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium: Grave Ref; IV.K.1.
All the photographs below supplied by the kind permission of Daniel Swainston:
"These photos were taken in the 1960s when my great grandmother Mary (Williams youngest sister) went to Coxyde Cemetery to Williams grave."
