Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
William Stephen Lewis was born 1892 at Houghton-le-Spring, County Durham, the eldest of 4 sons and 6 daughters, his brother Charles born in 1905 died that same year. Father John Owen Loftus Lewis was born July 12th 1871 at Ouston, he married Mary Preston of Cassop, also in County Durham, born 1876 at Houghton-le-Spring, August 20th 1892. John was a coal miner and initially worked and lived at Newcastle Street, Ouston with his wife and 4 children, they shared their home with boarders, a widow Mrs. Mary Warren and her 6 children the eldest of whom was 26, the youngest 5. By 1911 they had moved to 2, Lambton Street, Newtown, Hebburn William (18) joined his father, a hewer, working as a putter below ground at the colliery.
William married Benniess I. Hill in 1913 at South Shields and had moved to Gateshead where their daughter Benniess I. W. Lewis was born in 1915. He enlisted in 1914 at Houghton, assigned as Private 2262 to the 1st/8th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry, a Territorial Force. The volunteers over the next nine months were formed into four companies, training at Boldon, Ravensworth and Newcastle for full time service overseas. The main body of men departed from Newcastle railway station, April 19th 1915 bound for France and within days were fighting at the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium where they suffered heavy losses from shelling and gas attacks. Private Lewis was part of the draft of reinforcements and departed to join the 151st Brigade, 50th Northumbrian Division in the field, October 31st 1915. The Division served in the trenches of the Ypres salient at Armentieres and Kemmel until August 1916.
Private 2262 William Stephen Lewis Durham Light Infantry was wounded, exact date unknown and taken by the Field Ambulance to the 1st Canadian Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul, an important railhead, air depot and hospital centre, where he died of wounds sustained on active service, July 17th 1916 and interred at the adjacent Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, Nord, France, grave II. E. 10. He was 24 years old.
His widow received all monies due to him, a pension for herself and their child and his awards of the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. She commissioned at a cost of 1 shilling 9 pence an additional inscription to be added to his military headstone, it reads, “At Rest”.
Benniess remarried in 1917 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne Benjamin C. Ward, and continued to live at Gateshead, at the address of 2, South Parade, Bill Quay.
William’s mother Mary Lewis nee Preston died 3 years after her son, aged only 43 years, in 1919, his father John Owen Loftus Lewis in 1941 aged 71 years, registered in the district of Sunderland. Details of his wife and child unknown.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.
William Stephen Lewis is remembered at Heworth on H92.03 and at Craghead on C120.01 and C120.04
