Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

William was born on 4th April 1882 to James and Alice Elener and was baptised three weeks later in Lynne Street United Free Methodist Chapel. He was the third of five children of the couple, James, George, William, Alice Maud and Elizabeth. all born in Hartlepool. By 1901 William had followed in his father’s footsteps and was working as a navvy, and after spending six years as a member of the DLI territorials, in 1907 he left for a new life in Canada.

The 1911 Canadian census has William as a lodger in Vancouver; he then returned to England in March 1911 and the UK census taken on 5th April lists him as a visitor, with his younger sister, staying with the Jenkins family in Council Street, West Stanley. Later that same month he married Annie Davies, of West Stanley and in June he and his new wife returned to Canada, sailing from Liverpool to Quebec on board the SS Virginian. Settling in Vancouver their daughter Alice Winnifred was born in November 1912.

20th March 1915 saw William enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force in New Westminster, British Columbia and becoming Private 428165 of the 47th Battalion. In England by the beginning of July, on arrival at Shorncliffe Camp he was transferred to the 30th Reserve Battalion, and then on 28th August transferred again to the 7th Battalion, whom he joined in France on 11th September 1915 in divisional reserve. With plenty of practice in the trenches the battalion were ready for the fighting on the Ypres Salient. William was granted nine days leave at the start of June 1916 and he would have rejoined his battalion in the Railway Dugouts at the end of the month, and it was here after the action of 25th July that Private 428165 was reported missing believed killed, a report which was then changed to killed in action in the vicinity of Ypres. William Elener is buried in Railway Dugouts Cemetery, with a headstone that reads “known to be buried in this cemetery”. His wife added "Only Golden memories left" to the headstone.

William Elener is remembered at Stanley in S135.04, at Hartlepool in H115.30 page 15 and at West Hartlepool in W111.86 page 12 and as William Elemer on W111.54

He is also remembered in Canada on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Elener