222681 Pte. William Victor Collins British Army 6th Dragoon Guards (d.21st June 1917) I don't really have much of a story about my grandfather, Pte William V Collins, who died on 21st June of 1917. What I do have is a lot of correspondence, acquired by Ancestry et al, from my great-grandfather, Frederick Stephens, to the War Office and latterly to William's CO, asking for his help in getting into contact/support some money out of him to support his daughter.
Marrying my grandmother in February 1914, he instantly decamped from London to Glasgow, where he enlisted in the 6th DG, having lied about his place of birth. His daughter, my mother, was born on July 31st of that year - an enforced/shotgun marriage, then. William nevertheless served, without distinction, until his death in action on 21st June 1917.
He had been coerced into returning to England to visit his wife and daughter, who was then around three years old. She remembered him as a tall man with pock-marked features, who cut her on the leg with his spur when he picked to her up. She bore the clearly-visible scar until she died.
As for the circumstances of my grandfather's last action ....Where? I don't know.
How? I don't know that either. And I've never been able to find out.
I'd be very happy to enter into communication with anybody who can tell me where the 6th DG were operating on 21st June 1917.
We've paid him a visit, the Guerard-le-Templeux Northern extension military cemetery where he lies, but there is a great lack of any information about his unit from the time of his death in action.
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