Born 1866, William Tertius Pretty was the eldest son of William Pretty, the corset manufacturer in Ipswich and his first wife, Margaret (née Woolard). On April 12th 1893, he married Mabel Hewitt Paul in Ipswich and they went on to have four children. William was an officer with the Cycle Company of 1st Volunteer Battalion, Suffolk Regiment until 1908, when it was disbanded under the Haldane reforms which, in turn, created the Territorial Army. Under the changes, the cyclists from Essex and Suffolk were combined into a single battalion under the command of William. 

By 1911, William’s family had moved from their home, Chandos House, in Ipswich to Greylands in Melton. It was then that William also decided it was time for the Suffolk companies of the Essex and Suffolk Cyclists Battalion to go their separate ways and he obtained permission to raise the 6th (Cyclists) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment in August that year.

At the end of July 1914, the 6th Suffolks were at their annual training camp at Pakefield Cliff, near Lowestoft, but with the outbreak of war imminent, they returned to their headquarters in Ipswich to await further instructions on their home service duties. On 4th August 1914, the 6th (Cyclists) Battalion, Suffolk Regiment went to their war station at Saxmundham with orders to guard the coast of Suffolk between the Orwell and the Waveney rivers. Once other cyclist battalions arrived in the county, their area was reduced to the coast between the River Deben and the River Blyth. William’s battalion was not always based in Suffolk and on occasions they were posted to other coastal towns such as Skegness, Louth, and Grainthorpe in Lincolnshire.

All of the men in the 6th Cyclist Battalion had volunteered for overseas service, but they were destined to remain on home service duties throughout the war. However, they did provide drafts of men who joined the 1st Army Cyclists Corps in France and later, as reinforcements to other Suffolk Regiment battalions.

Being a home service battalion was not without its dangers; in 1916, a party from the battalion came under fire from a cruiser of the German Navy while at Corton, near Lowestoft. The following year, another party came under fire from the German Navy while at Southwold. The battalion was also detailed to guard the wreckage from the zeppelin that crashed at Hollow Tree Farm in Theberton in June 1917.

Throughout the war, William remained in command of the battalion, but he did not serve overseas, making him ineligible for any campaign medals. In June 1919, however, he was awarded the OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours.

William died on 9th August 1944 in Eldoret, Kenya.