21045 Pte Percy William Swatton, 1st Bn, Wiltshire Regt

Two hundred and seventy two British officers and men died on the 10th December 1917.

21045 Pte Percy William Swatton of the 1st Battalion, Wiltshire Regiment, was killed in action on this day. He was born in Axford, Wiltshire and enlisted at Trowbridge, probably towards the end of May or the beginning of June 1915. At the time of his enlistment he was living at Marlborough.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records basic information about this man, but his unusual surname means that he is easily identified in other archive material. He appears on the 1901 census as a seventeen year old living with his parents and siblings at 25 Head Street, Marlborough. His father Thomas is recorded as a 40 year old bookmaker and shopkeeper running a business on his own account. His mother, Lucy Annie, was older by nine years, and the couple had four sons living with them at the Head Street address. Percy was working as a grocer's porter and then follow Albert Tom Swatton, a 16 year old carpenter's apprentice, William Levester Swatton, a 14 year old shop assistant, and finally James Fergusson Swatton, aged nine.

Albert and James certainly served during WW1 as well, Albert with the Royal Engineers and James with the Wiltshire Regiment. James appears to have joined the regiment two or three months earlier than his brother and he was overseas by 19th July 1915. Percy though, would not go abroad until 1916 at the earliest.

Percy's birth was registered in the June quarter of 1883 which means that he was 34 years old at the time of his death. He is buried in Grevillers British Cemetery. His brothers survived the Great War.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry.co.uk (MIC, Free BMD, 1891 and 1901 Census)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Soldiers Died in The Great War