William Bruton was born on 9th August 1899, the oldest of two children to William and Kate Bruton. William Sr was a grocer from Charlcombe to the north of Bath, Somerset, but it was in the Walcot area of Bath itself that the family settled.

Kate died in November 1904, at the age of just 35 years old, and William Sr raised his children on his own. He married a second time, to Edith Elly in 1910, and the couple went on to have a daughter, Mona, the following year.

William Jr – who was known as Willie, to avoid confusion with his father – was still in school at the time of the 1911 census, but when he left a few years later, he found work as an engine cleaner. War had come to Europe by this point, but to begin with Willie was too young to play his part.

He finally got his chance to enlist towards the end of the conflict, and joined the Royal Navy as an Ordinary Seaman on 18th July 1918. His service document record that Willie was 5ft 11ins (1.8m) tall, with brown hair, hazel eyes and a fresh complexion. He was also noted as having a scar on his upper lip.

Ordinary Seaman’s first posting was to be HMS Victory, the Royal Naval Dockyard in Portsmouth, and, tragically, this was also to be his last. Within a matter of weeks he had contracted pneumonia, and he passed away from the condition on 12th September 1918. He was just 19 years of age.

William Bruton was brought back to Somerset for burial. He was laid to rest in the family plot in Lansdown Cemetery, overlooking the city of his birth.

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