People on board

BRADLEY, William Edward

William Edward Bradley was born in Hawkshead, Ulverston in the Lake District in 1897 to Thomas Seatle Bradley and Ruth Smith Bolton, the elder of their two sons. Thomas was a Farm Labourer and in the 1901 census, four years after they were married, he and Ruth and the two boys were living in the Bolton household on Main Street, Hawkshead. In the 1911 census they were living on their own, but still in Main Street.

William enlisted in the Army Ordnance Corps in Carlisle and in October 1918 he was with the 15th Section. This Section may have been based in Ireland which would account for William’s presence on RMS Leinster on the 10th of October. He did not survive the sinking but his body was recovered and he was buried in Grangegorman Military Cemetery in Dublin.

William’s name is inscribed on the family grave in St Michael and All Angels churchyard in Hawkshead and also on the War Memorial there. His headstone in Grangegorman is similar to that in Hawkshead, on a smaller scale, a two-stepped base, a shaft and Celtic Cross. It is possible that it was erected by the people of Hawkshead.

His brother Thomas, two years younger, enlisted in the South Staffordshire Regiment in June 1918 and survived the war.