In Memory of WILLIAM STEVENS Corporal 5835 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment Who died on Tuesday, 8th September 1914 No Known Grave - Special Memorial 3 Bezu-Le-Guery Communal Cemetery, Aisne, France Commemorated in Perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission & Remembered with Honour

Memorials in Bezu-Le-Guery Communal Cemetery, Aisne, France1

Of the seven men from Beeston killed during the first year of the War, only two were killed on the Western Front. The first man reported killed in 1914 from Beeston, however, was a soldier, Private William Stevens of the 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment, who was killed in action during the battle of Marne on the 8th September, 1914.

Although we no little about his origins, it is known that William Stevens was born in Old Basford, Nottingham and was a married man at the time of his death. It is, however, recorded that he was living in Beeston at the time of his call-up² and that, after the war, his wife was living at 7 Mitre Terrace, Spring Close, Lenton, Notts³.

Being on the Army Reserve, he was called up immediately after war was declared, rejoining his old regiment at Portsmouth. The 1st Lincolnshire Regiment was part of the 9th Brigade, 3rd Division. The Division left by sea for France, part of the original British Expeditionary Force which landed at Havre on 14th August 1914.

As Corporal Stevens had no known grave, but is one of the ten British soldiers commemorated on a Memorial in the Bezu-Le-Guery Communal Cemetery.

Bezu-Le-Guery Communal Cemetery : Bezu-le-Guery is 16 kilometres west of Chateau Thierry. The cemetery is on the right hand side of the D84 on entering the village off the N3. The cemetery contains 13 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, seven of which are unidentified⁴.

The six identified soldiers were all from the 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment; all were killed on the same day, 8th September 1914. They included Captain Robert Edward Drake, the Battalion Adjutant from Melford in Sussex, Private John Alfred Bradley from Battersea, and Private Tom Swain from Grantham. There are no details in the Commonwealth War Register for Private Edward Eagling.

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Footnotes
¹The photograph in Bezu-Le-Guery Communal Cemetery is from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. (http://www.cwgc.org)
²"Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919" records his birthplace as Old Basford, Nottingham and his residence as Beeston, Notts
³His post-war entry in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records his wife as Mrs E Stevens at this Lenton address.
⁴This description of Bezu-Le-Guery Communal Cemetery is based on that on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. (http://www.cwgc.org)

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