On the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial is the name of Lieutenant William Stanley Wylie serving with the 3rd Battalion attached to the 1st Battalion York and Lancaster Regiment who died 10/05/1915.
William Stanley Wylie was born 31st December 1890 the son of marine engineer Edward Smith Stanley Wylie, (born 1864, at 1 Zion Terrace, Westoe village.) and his wife Amy.
In 1901 the family were residing at 10 Malborough Street, South Shields.
William Stanley joined the South Shields High School at the age of 12, on the 16th September 1903. He left in December 1906, only to return the following September for a further two years. He left on the 16th July 1909 at the age of 18.
However, by 1911, his mother Amy Wylie and William Stanley were residing at 14 Ada Street. William is described as a Student of the Arts. There is no address given for his father at this time.
At some time William Stanley was a teacher at the Deans Road Boys’ school at South Shields.
He served as a 2nd Lieutenant (later as Lieutenant) with the 3rd Battalion of the Yorkshire & Lancaster Regiment. While attached to the 1st Battalion he was in action in Belgium in May 1915, and went missing near the town of Hooge. He was later reported as killed, having died of his wounds.
The Shields Gazette reported that
Lieut. Wm. Stanley Wylie, 1st Yorks and Lancs., wounded and missing in France on the 8th May. Lieut. Wylie is one of two sons of Mrs Wylie, St Michael’s Avenue, who are serving at the front.
The Newcastle Journal 29/06/1915 reports:-
As the result of inquiries made by the military authorities in France, Mrs Amy Wylie of St. Michael’s Avenue, South Shields, received official intimation that her son, William Stanley Wylie, is now posted as “wounded and missing on May 8th”.
Lieut. Wylie, who 24 years of age, was an assistant master at the South Shields High School. He studied for three years at Armstrong College and took his B.A. at Durham University in 1912.
For some time he was one of the secretaries of the Westoe Rugby Football Club and an active member of the South Shields Rowing Club.
His medals were dispatched to Mrs Wylie at 1 St Michael’s Avenue South Shields.
William Stanley is remembered at Durham in D47.151, at Harton on H104.03 and H104.06, at Newcastle on NUT063 and NUT263, at South Shields on S86.047 and S86.105 and on our Lists of Teachers who fell in 1914-18 and Teachers who served in 1914-18.
