CWGC Headstone

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

William was the oldest of the eleven children, John, Dorothy, Thomas, David, Robert, Annie, Mary Jane, Margaret, Arthur and Charles, of South Shields joiner John William Metcalfe and his wife Mary Jane (nee Reay), and he was born on 27th September 1873 in South Shields. By 1881 they were living in Dale Street, Westoe and ten years later had moved to a larger house in Gardner Street. In 1897 William married local girl Sussanah Wright and by 1901 they were sharing a house in Albion Street, with widowed Sarah Beadnell and her niece and their own two young sons, John and George, and William was working as a bricklayer.

By 1910 William was living and working in Canada and he was joined in July by Sussanah and their four children, who had sailed from Middlesbrough to Montreal on board the cargo ship Iona. The family settled in Montreal and on 21st January 1915 William left his home and job as a bricklayer to enlist in the Canadian Expeditionary Force for which Sussanah gave her permission. At the end of February William as Gunner 85338 of the 6th Brigade, Canadian Field Artillery found himself sailing across the Atlantic again.

After only two months in England Gunner Metcalfe was drafted to France at the end of May to join the 2nd Artillery Brigade, where for nine months he worked as a cook, not returning to duty in the field until 12th April 1916 when he rejoined at Ypres. The 2nd Brigade then moved on to the Somme and it was here on 14th September 1916 in positions around Pozieries that Gunner Metcalf was killed in action.

At the of the war his wife Sussanah and the four youngest children returned to live in South Shields, his oldest son John, who had also served in the CEF remained in Canada.

His name does not appear on any local war memorial.

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 Gunner Metcalfe