THE FORGOTTEN FALLEN
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WILLIAM GEORGE MING Private 29980 1st/8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
Killed in Action aged 42 27th August 1917
No Known Grave but commemorated on Tyne Cot Memorial, Passchendaele, Belgium
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William George Ming’s birth is registered in Aylesbury in the summer of 1875 and the 1881 census shows that he was born in Weedon, the third son of George and Jane Ming, a farm labourer living in the Barracks (now known as Providence Place). In 1891, this home is given as number 8 (now 61) with the Arnold family on one side and the Jeffs the other. By 1901, aged 24, he is working as a Farm Labourer like his father. In the census of 1911, it states that his parents have been married for 48 years and he was still living with them. William’s father George was the younger brother of William who was married to Elizabeth Simonds. George married Jane Hounslow in 1862. William and Herbert’s father were cousins. It is reported that he formerly served as a Private 23036 in the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry.
Tyne Cot Cemetery overlooks the battlefields of Passchendaele and is built around German blockhouses. Indeed, the central Cross of Remembrance is built on and around oneof these. Its name was given by the men of the Northumberland Fusiliers (Tyne-siders). One of the pillboxes was an Advanced Dressing Station. It was captured by the 3rd Australians Division in October 1917, lost in April 1918 and recaptured five months later. There are 11,956 graves there and 8,637 are of unnamed soldiers. It is the largest number of burials of any war. The panels have inscribed the names of 33,783 men by their respective Regiments who have ‘no known grave’ and William’s name is inscribed under his Regiment and may be one who is buried there. |
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GO TO Forgotten Fallen list for more biographies of the men commemorated on the Weedon War Memorial.
