Willie Cyril Martin was born in December 1891 in the Dorset village of Almer. The son of Elizabeth Martin, his mother would go on to marry Edward Holloway nine years later, although it is unclear whether he was Willie’s father.

When he finished his schooling, Willie found work as a kitchen porter, and this led him to the Dorset coast. The 1911 census found him boarding with 35 others at Pryory Mansions in Bournemouth.

When war broke out, Willie stepped up to play his part. He enlisted on 9th October 1914, joining the Dorsetshire Regiment. Assigned to the 4th Battalion, his unit was soon sent to India, moving to the Middle East over the following years.

By the autumn of 1916, Private Martin was back in Dorset. On 7th November he married Edith Williams at St Clement’s Church in Bournemouth. She was the 26-year old daughter of a gas fitter, and the couple’s marriage certificate sheds some light on Willie’s background as well. It gave his father’s name as Richard Martin (deceased), who was a butler, although there is no other information to substantiate this, and Elizabeth had passed away some years before, so could not back up or refute the suggestion.

Private Martin returned to duty after his wedding. At some point he transferred to the Labour Corps, and was attached to 644 Company. His re-assignment may have been down to medical issues – he had contracted malaria while serving overseas – and by the autumn of 1917, he was sent to hospital because of his deteriorating health.

Willie was admitted to Bath War Hospital in Somerset, suffering from a bout of malaria. The condition was to get the better of him, and he passed away on 8th October 1917, from a haemorrhage on his lungs. He was 25 years of age.

Willie Cyril Martin was laid to rest in the military section of Bath’s sweeping Locksbrook Cemetery, not far from the hospital in which he passed away.

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