Carole Fife has provided the following:
William's military record shows that he was born in Bedlington and enlisted in Newcastle. He died of wounds and his legatee was his father. William was born in 1886, the youngest child of William and Barbara Swann. His father owned West Sleekburn Farm, and the 1911 census shows that William and his older brother Robert were working the farm with their father, while their brother Joseph was a mining engineer. William is one of the few men for whom I have found a probate reference; this gives the place of his death as the Canadian General Hospital in Boulogne. He left £2,730 and nine pence, with administration granted to Murdoch McLean, Surgeon, and to Edward Gray, farmer.
Susan Carmichael has submitted this:
William Wallace Swann was born in Sleekburn, Northumberland in the 1st quarter of 1886. He was the son of William and Barbara (nee Todd) Swann.His parents had married in the 2nd quarter of 1876 in Hexham, Northumberland. Barbara Todd was the daughter of Joseph and Sarah Todd, Joseph was a farmer in Halton, Northumberland, the farm having 750 acres and employed 6 labourers.
William Wallace lived at West Sleekburn Farm, West Sleekburn, Bedlington, Northumberland. On the 1901 census William Wallace was living there with his parents, two brothers, three sisters, and a servant, Mary Jane Pattison.
By the 1911 census William’s mother had died, he was still living at West Sleekburn Farm, with his brothers and sisters, but the family now had two servants, Annie Todd, and James Bowman.
William Wallace Swann is remembered in Stakeford on S71.02 and in Barnard Castle on B135.04 and B135.20
