William Ker

William Ker was born on 14^th October 1892 in Glasgow, the third of six children of Charles Ker, a partner in a prominent firm of chartered accountants, and his wife Florence (née Higginbotham). He was educated at Edinburgh’s Cargilfield School before proceeding to Rugby School, where he distinguished himself as a gifted all-round sportsman, excelling in both football and cross-country running.

As an undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was training to follow his father into the accounting profession, William formed a close and enduring friendship with Alan Patrick Herbert. At Oxford he took up hockey, playing for the University’s first XI, and in 1914 he represented Scotland against both England and Ireland. Despite these considerable athletic achievements, his academic performance was less assured, and he graduated with a third-class degree in Classics.

At the outbreak of war William initially served with the Motor Boat Reserve, before transferring to the Royal Naval Division in January 1915. He was appointed Sub-Lieutenant and attached to Hawke Battalion, with which he was posted to Gallipoli in May. In September he was sent to Alexandria on temporary duty, returning to the Peninsula the following month. In November he assumed command of Hawke Battalion’s ‘A’ Company and was promoted Temporary Lieutenant, a rank he retained even after relinquishing that command.

Following the evacuation of Gallipoli, William was granted leave to the United Kingdom and rejoined his battalion when the Division moved to France in May 1916. He served with Hawke Battalion at Bully-Grenay before taking part in the Battle of the Ancre. He was killed in action during the fighting in November, the precise circumstances of his death remaining unclear. It appears most likely that he was among those cut down by the devastating fire from the German redoubt which inflicted such severe losses on Hawke Battalion. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

In The Hawke Battalion, Douglas Jerrold wrote of him:

What was C Company without Ker, so gifted that his most strenuous efforts seemed effortless, yet moved to vehemence by patent folly or injustice – a personality of rare promise and still rarer charm?

When the Division returned to the Ancre in 1917, Herbert composed the poem Beaucourt Revisited in memory of those who had fallen there the previous November, and in its penultimate verse paid quiet tribute to his close friend.

I WANDERED up to Beaucourt; I took the river track,
And saw the lines we lived in before the Boche went back;
But Peace was now in Pottage, the front was far ahead,
The front had journeyed Eastward, and only left the dead.

And I thought, How long we lay there, and watched across the wire,
While the guns roared round the valley, and set the skies afire!
But now there are homes in HAMEL and tents in the Vale of Hell,
And a camp at Suicide Corner, where half a regiment fell.

The new troops follow after, and tread the land we won,
To them 'tis so much hill-side re-wrested from the Hun,
We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud ;
The shell-holes hold our history, and half of them our blood.
Here, at the head of Peche Street, 'twas death to show your face,
To me it seemed like magic to linger in the place ;
For me how many spirits hung round the Kentish Caves,
But the new men see no spirits - they only see the graves.

I found the half-dug ditches we fashioned for the fight,
We lost a score of men there - young James was killed that night;
I saw the star shells staring, I heard the bullets hail,
But the new troops pass unheeding - they never heard the tale.

I crossed the blood-red ribbon, that once was No-Man's Land,
I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute-hand;
And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth shot,
And here was William lying - but the new men know them not.

And I said, "There is still the river, and still the stiff, stark trees,
To treasure here our story, but there are only these";
But under the white wood crosses the dead men answered low,
"The new men know not BEAUCOURT, but we are here - we know."

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