Northumberland Fusiliers Badge
Derek Johnstone and Carole Fife have provided the following:
William Smith was born at South Shields, Durham, on 1st May 1890 and christened on 11th June in the same year. His parents were Robert and Henrietta Smith who were both born in Cornwall.
Records show Williams’s family lived at 120, John Clay Street, South Shields in 1891 where his father was working in the coal mines.
In 1901, when William was 11 years old and a scholar, his family lived at 62, Stevenson Street, South Shields where his father was a hewer in the coal mines. In the household at this time were siblings Robert 18, Henrietta 13, Jane 9, Thomas 4 and Ernest, who was one year old.
The 1911 Census shows that Williams’s family have moved to 89 Howard Row, Netherton, a village near to Bedlington, Northumberland, where he worked in the coal mines. Soon after this census William married Ethel Morgan at South Shields. In 1913 they had a son, Arthur, and a daughter, Edith, who was born after William’s death.
The CWGC records confirm that he was the son of Robert and Henrietta Smith of 24, Second Street, Netherton Colliery, Northumberland and the husband of Ethel Smith of 29, Melrose Terrace Bedlington Station.
William Smith is possibly remembered in Bedlington onB15.06 and possibly in West Sleekburn on W34.01 but he is in the Battalion History
