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8190 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
William Brown, known as Willie was born in Sudbury in 1890, one of eight children of Henry and Mary Ann Brown (née Harper). His father was employed as a maltster and the family lived at 32 Girling Street before moving to 15 East Street.
Willie enlisted in Sudbury before the war and was a regular soldier. In 1911 he was stationed at the Suffolk Regimental Depot in Bury St. Edmunds. At the outbreak of war his battalion was stationed in Khartoum. The battalion returned to England to Winchester before being sent to France and Belgium. His sister recalled walking her brother back to the railway station with her father when he set off for France, she would never see him again. She remembered the church bells were pealing and never liked to hear the church bells after his death.
Willie’s battalion embarked onboard SS Mount Temple at Southampton and landed at Le Havre on 18 January 1915; by 4 February the battalion, which formed part of 84th Brigade, 28th Division was entrenched between the Ypres-Comines Canal and Hill 60 where they came under fire almost immediately. At the beginning of April they held the line at Linenhoek moving to Poperinghe and then to Vlamertinghe. On 17 April the battalion took over the line at Zonnebeke where incessant rain had turned the trenches into rivers of mud.
Willie served alongside other Sudbury men who would also lose their lives between February and May 1915 including: Joseph Allen, Sidney Binks, Arthur Crick, Arthur French, Arthur Golding, John Grimwood, Harry Lorkings, Bert Malyon and Harry Wallace.
Willie was killed in action on 20 April 1915 aged 25, two days before the start of the Second Battle of Ypres when the Germans used gas for the first time. He lies buried in Bedford House Cemetery, near Ypres, Belgium. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.
A Cross of Remembrance was laid at his grave in April 2006 and April 2009.
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