SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"

Private WILLIAM DYSON WALLIS.

4898, 10th (Prince of Wales's Own) Royal Hussars.

who died, aged 30, on the 11th February 1915.

Son of James Arthur and the late Annie Wallis. Born at Howden, Yorks.


Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery.
[Photo of William kindly contributed by his Great Nephew, Michael Gilday of Coventry.]

Private Wallis's name appears on the North Skelton War Memorial and the plaque in Skelton Church.
Parish Magazine of 1914 gives his address in North Skelton as 41 Richard St.
The 1901 census shows William as a dock labourer in Hull. In that same year his mother died in childbirth and his father moved the family to the Skelton area and worked in the mines. In 1905 the father was involved in a mining accident and this caused the family to break up. William and his brother Tom joined the Hussars and were in S Africa when the First World War started.

The 10th (Prince of Wales's Own Royal) Hussars were formed in August 1914.
They were attached to the 3rd Cavalry Division, but most fought as infantry.
The Division had been involved in the First Battle of Ypres in 1914.
The Second Battle of Ypres did not begin until April 1915.
William Wallis seems to have been wounded some time prior to 11th February 1915, as he is buried at a casualty cemetery some way back from the Front.

Poperinghe Old Military Cemetery is located 10.5 kilometres west of Ieper town centre, in the town of Poperinge itself.
The town of Poperinghe (now Poperinge) was of great importance during the First World War because, although occasionally bombed or bombarded at long range, it was the nearest place to Ypres (now Ieper) which was both considerable in size and reasonably safe.
It was at first a centre for casualty clearing stations, but by 1916 it became necessary to move these units further back and field ambulances took their places.
The earliest Commonwealth graves in the town are in the communal cemetery, which was used from October 1914 to March 1915.
The Old Military Cemetery was made in the course of the First Battle of Ypres and was closed, so far as Commonwealth burials are concerned, at the beginning of May 1915.
The Old Military Cemetery contains 450 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War.