Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

William Doughty Milton was a Sunderland born printer who married Hannah Maria Bratt in Smethwick, Staffordshire in 1897 and their three children were born there; Gladys in 1898, her brother Alfred Ernest on 24th August 1899, and young William Henry, born in December 1900 who only lived a matter of months.

The family sailed for Canada on board SS Laurentian arriving on 2nd January 1904, the ship’s manifest stating they were making for Montreal.

According to the 1911 and 1916 Canadian Census, Alf was an inmate at the Industrial Training School at Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, a juvenile delinquent gaol, where he trained to be a baker.

As soon as he was 18 he enlisted with the 79th Cameron Highlanders of Canada Militia Regiment in Winnipeg and after forfeiting two days pay for being AWOL he transferred to “H” Company, 1st Depot Battalion, Manitoba Regiment at Port Arthur, Ontario, where he was assigned to the 3rd Reinforcement Draft.

Private 2373359 arrived in Liverpool with the 3rd RD on board the SS Cretic o 4th March 1918, and as he was still too young to be sent to France he was posted to the 11th Reserve Battalion at Dibgate, near Folkestone, Kent. Admitted to hospital in Eastbourne with influenza in June, just five days after his 19th birthday he was posted to the 16th (Canadian Scottish) Battalion and proceeded with them to France as part of the 3rd Infantry Brigade, 1st Canadian Division, joining them at Achicourt, near Arras on 7th September.

Two weeks later near Berneville at about 6.30pm on 23rd September he was seen playing around with an 18 pound artillery shell. Although warned by his corporal not to "meddle" with it, Milton decided to try to unscrew the fuse. The Circumstance of Casualty report reads “the shell exploded, severely wounding him in the abdomen, leg, face and hands. His comrades rendered first aid and he was taken to No.4 Canadian Casualty Clearing Station where he died”.

A court of inquiry ruled his injuries to be self-inflicted, caused by his own negligence, not in the performance of military duty.

Alfred Ernest Milton is remembered in Sunderland on S140.048 part 9, page 201

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance.

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Milton