8th December 2015 William Freshwater William born in Stamford in 1900, lived with his father William, (a railway guard) and mother Dorothy Kate in the Newtown cottages by Stamford East station in Water Street. In 1911 he was still at school and the family had moved to 9 Burghley Lane. His father was an invalid and there were nine children although three of the older girls had left home for domestic work. As his father could no longer work, he left the railway and he died before the outbreak of WWI . William enlisted as a Lincoln reservist in 1915, giving ‘mother’ as his next-of-kin. He was attested in Durham on 7 Aug 1917 in the Durham Light Infantry (number unknown), giving his age as 18. On 8 Dec 1917 he was posted to France and served there until the end of the war. He transferred back to the Lincoln Reservists on 9 June 1919 and was finally discharged in March 1920. He had served 4 years 31 days, earning the two standard WWI medals. He was apparently uninjured and returned to his mother and family in Stamford. He died there in 1960.