Dvr William Price Francis

William Francis was born in 1880 in the tiny hamlet of Beguildy in Radnorshire, Wales. He worked there as a butcher and was also a part of the local militia. In April 1903 he decided to sign up for the regular army, joining the Royal Horse Artillery. We learn from his surviving records that in 1902, aged 21, he was 5ft 4in tall with brown hair and hazel eyes.

His travels with the army took him as far as Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan, where there is a report of him being injured when a horse fell on him during practice.

It may have been this army position that brought him to Brentwood, where he was certainly living by 1914. He was living at 23 North Road with his wife.

He decided to leave the army after 12 years service in April 1914, but may have struggled to find further work, since he joined the reserves in June 1914 and was called up to fight in the first world war on 4th August the same year.

He survived the entire war, returning home in 1919. He died in Brentwood in 1957.