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Private William Dalley
Year of Birth: 1890
Date of Death: 4/12/1917
Age: 27
Nationality: British
Regiment: Labour Corps
Family: Unknown
Occupation: Superintendent
Service number: 66113 Screen Wall. B10. 6. 475A.
Insignia of the Army Works Corps, to become the Labour Corps in World War One, the Royal Pioneer Corps and now the Royal Logistics Corps.
William Dalley was born to William Richard Dalley and his wife Mary Dalley of Ledbury, Herefordshire around 1890. Prior to joining the war effort he had married Edith Annie Dalley, and the couple lived at 47 Pigott St. off Bath Row in Birmingham, though he was without children when he left for war.
William was enlisted into the Labour Corps, suggesting he was unfit to serve on the front lines, as he no previous military service which would have resulted in injury. He was attached to the Devonshire Regiment, but later moved the 380th Home Service Employment Company, possibly as the result of injury, which these units exempted from service overseas.
As such William returned home, but died whilst still on active service on 4th December 1917. It is possible that his death may been caused by injuries sustained in France, and he may have been treated at Queen’s Hospital, a training hospital converted for active use during the war, and located very close to the Dalley’s home.
Soldiers of the Labour Corps, raised in 1915 and disbanded in 1921
After a gruelling period on the Somme, the concert party of the 11/DLI posed for this picture at Picquigny in October 1916. Captain G S Fillingham (centre) was posted from the regular 2/DLI. He recalled:
'A typical pioneer job was this - be present under shell fire all day in support of the main attack. Then move forward and grab ground and dig trenches in so called no man's land under enemy fire at night. Go back before day break, sleep and start all over again. Casualties no object'.
The Labour Corps was raised in 1915 and disbanded in 1921, today their roles are undertaken by the Royal Logistics Corps.
The Corps grew to some 389,900 men (more than 10% of the total size of the Army) by the Armistice. Of this total, around 175,000 were working in the United Kingdom and the rest in the theatres of war. The Corps was manned by officers and other ranks who had been medically rated below the "A1" condition needed for front line service. Many were returned wounded. Labour Corps units were often deployed for work within range of the enemy guns, sometimes for lengthy periods.
In April 1917, a number of Infantry Battalions were transferred to the Corps. The Labour Corps absorbed the 28 ASC Labour Companies between February and June 1917. Labour Corps Area Employment Companies were formed in 1917 for salvage work, absorbing the Divisional Salvage Companies. In the crises of March and April 1918 on the Western Front, Labour Corps Units were used as emergency infantry. It became the 18th -19th Labour Corps in May 1917.
The Corps always suffered from its treatment as something of a second class organization: for example, the men who died are commemorated under their original Regiment, with Labour Corps being secondary. Researching men of the Corps was made more difficult by this until the publication of the mammoth 'Soldiers died in the great war' collection where the Labour Corps was finally given it's own section in volume 80.
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