Lance Corporal William Helsdon was born in Oakham in August 1883 and was the 5th of 12 children. We know that he lived most of his life in Oakham and was a popular member of the Oakham Institute Committee. It seems he was in the Army Reserves and worked as a domestic labourer, and in 1911 the Grantham Journal reported that one Monday morning he was at the Oakham Rifle Range acting as a marker when there was a misunderstanding in the signalling during firing and he walked in front of the target and was shot through the arm and shoulder, the bullet narrowly missing his lung. Fortunately, he fully recovered, and he married a Stathern girl, Elizabeth Hall in April 1914 when he was 30 years of age, his occupation given as labourer. We know that he was an active member of the village cricket team here at Stathern.

 

He had only been married a few months before war was declared. He re-joined his regiment, the Leicestershires, and was sent to France. He died 11 months after his marriage. when his company attacked Neuve Chapelle on 10 March 1915. He was shot dead by a sniper whilst sitting in a ditch, a bullet having gone through his arm and stomach - an uncanny similarity to being shot 3 years earlier. The sniper was later shot by one of his officers.

 

The Grantham Journal reported the Stathern Parish Council Minutes of 3 April, just three weeks after his death, by saying “On Saturday Mrs Helsdon received back a parcel she had sent to her husband with the intimation written on it that her husband had been killed in action”. It was a terrible way for her, heavily pregnant, to receive the news. A week later the Grantham Journal formally reported her husband’s death. He had three brothers still at the front, one being wounded. Tragically his wife was also to lose a brother from Stathern, Lance Corporal George James Hall, later in the war.

 

William Hesldon was buried on the battlefield and has no known gravesite although he is recorded on the Roll of Honour at the Oakham Institute and of course at Stathern. In 1923 the Grantham Journal wrote of the dedication of the Stathern War Memorial Board with these words: ‘Forty ex-servicemen paraded and marched up to the church. Conspicuous in their ranks was little William Helsdon aged 8 years wearing the medals of his father who had been killed shortly before the boy was born’.

​

Roger Hawkins, November 2015