248505 Pte. William Thomas Taylor British Army 58th Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps from:Croxteth, Liverpool My maternal grandfather, William Taylor, was born in Railway Cottages in Dublin in April 1889. He had two brothers, Arthur and Jack, who also served in the First World War. His father was a train driver and his parents both died some time before 1914. William, Arthur and Jack, as orphans, were sent to live with relatives in Liverpool, though one may have entered a children's home in Croxteth.
William had an uncle called Captain W. Gallant whom he wrote postcards to during the war. He lived at Primrose Cottage in Croxteth which is no longer there.
William volunteered in 1914 training at Aldershot and going to France in 1915. He suffered a slight gas attack at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 serving as a stretcher bearer. He was put on lighter duties and served on Ambulance Train No 10. He once saw his brother on a train going in the opposite direction.
In June 1918, William was wounded with a gunshot wound to his ankle somewhere between Reims and Epernay. As boys, my brother and I found a small cardboard pill box with ribbon and the pieces of shrapnel inside that were taken from William's ankle. He was taken to a French field hospital, strapped down and the shrapnel taken out of his ankle without anesthetic.
William recovered at Mere, Wiltshire in a VAD hospital.
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