William Ambrose was born in 1875 in Sutton, Suffolk. He was the son of William and Elizabeth Ambrose of The Warreners, Sutton. On 27th August 1898, William married Annie Jane Smith at St Andrew’s Church, Melton. In 1901, William was working as a groom for the Burness family at Melton Lodge. During this period, William and Annie lived on The Street, Melton, with their three children, Elizabeth Mary, Ivy May and William Laurence. By 1911, the family was living at Lodge Farm Cottage on Asylum Road, Melton, and William continued to work as a groom for the Burness family. On Christmas day 1915, their last child Noel Christopher was born.
In September 1916, William was conscripted into the army and, after six months of training, was posted to the 12th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment in France. In May 1918, the 12th Suffolks were reduced to cadre strength, with six hundred and seventy men sent to the Suffolk’s Base Depot for redeployment to other battalions of the Regiment. It is likely that this is when William was posted to join the 2nd Battalion, Suffolk Regiment.
On 8th August 1918, the One Hundred Day Offensive began. William’s battalion was away from the front line undergoing training and it was not until the night of the 22nd/23rd August that they would be in action again at Gomiecourt, in the Second Battles of The Somme. The fighting continued through August and September and between the 26th September and 10th October, the battalion engaged in several costly encounters with the enemy.
At midnight on the 26th September, William and the battalion gathered at their assembly points to the west of the Canal Du Nord in preparation for an attempt to capture the village of Flesquieres. The canal was dry, with steep brick sides requiring ladders to scale them; the battalion’s officers decided they should cross it before zero hour, at 05:20 the next morning. Two of the battalion’s four companies managed to do this before being spotted by the enemy and coming under artillery fire. At the allotted time, the battalion advanced quickly, seizing the village. The casualties accounted for more than one hundred and fifty men. After re-grouping in Flesquires, the battalion prepared for their next objective, an attack on the German army at Rumilly on 1st October.
The attack commenced at 06.00, but when the battalion reached the German front line, they found it to be strongly defended by the enemy. The endeavour was a partial success, with over three hundred prisoners being taken, but at a great price; the battalion suffered almost one hundred and eighty casualties, with thirty-one men killed, ninety-seven wounded and fifty missing.
William was one of those wounded. He was taken to the 8th Field Ambulance with shrapnel wounds to his left thigh and right arm. They transferred him to the 34th Casualty Clearing Station based at Grevillers where, at 21:00 that day, he died from his wounds.
William is buried in the Grevillers British Cemetery, France, and for his war service, he received the British War and Victory Medals. Annie and her children continued to live in the Melton area – she died in 1956, at the age of seventy-eight. William Laurence and his wife, Mabel, are buried at Melton Old Church, as is Noel Christopher.