25th Light Railway Company, Royal Engineers
William Arthur White was born in Croydon, Surrey in 1889, the son of George Robert White (an engineer) and his wife Ruth (née Shoebridge) and was one of four children, two boys and two girls.
He spent his early years in Croydon but had moved to Gloucester by the time of the 1901 Census.
On 3 February 1908 he married Ethel Mary Ann Gould (1880-1961) at Whaddon Parish Church. Curiously he stated his age on the marriage certificate to be twenty-three, when he was actually only nineteen; his wife was twenty-eight. This fiction was carried over until the 1911 Census when he declared his age to be twenty-six (rather than twenty-two). They had two children, William Arthur (born 1911) and Yvonne Esther (born 1921).
In 1911 William and Ethel ware living at 1 Oxford Cottages, Oxford Street, Kingsholm, Gloucester, with William working as an electrical engineer with a manufacturer of sound transmitting equipment.
Hardly any documentation has survived relating to William’s military service. We know from his Medal Rolls Index Card that he joined the Royal Engineers (RE) as a Sapper (number 355028) but it is not known when. He later transferred to a RE Training Reserve Battalion and acquired the number 8/26753 and following that joined the 25th Light Railway Company (LRC). This particular LRC first went to the Western Front on 23 May 1917 and operated workshop facilities: LRCs built and maintained the light railway network used to supply men and materials to the front line. No doubt William applied his electrical engineering knowledge whilst with the 25th LRC and evidently rose to the rank of Serjeant. It is not known when he left the Army but was mostly likely retained in the Reserve.
The circumstances of his death are not known, other than what is contained in a funeral report in the Gloucester Journal of 12 February 1921. This states that he died in the Royal Infirmary at Gloucester on 5 February after a ‘short illness’. He was thirty-two years of age. At the time he was living at 18 India Road, Tredworth, Gloucester. After his funeral on 9 February he was buried in Gloucester Old Cemetery, where a standard CWGC headstone marks his grave.
Researched by Graham Adams 2 March 2020