The third of three brothers to fall during the Great War, William had enlisted with his brother Silas into the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry on 26^th January 1916 and served as 26912 Private W. Taylor until he was wounded with a piece of shrapnel in his shoulder on the 1^st July 1916, having only being in France for a fortnight.  He returned to France and was placed with the 1^st/7^th Battalion, Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regt. until he was taken again to hospital in June 1917 and was given six weeks recuperation period.  After this, he spent another eight months in Belgium before being killed instantaneously by a machine gun bullet to the head during the 1918 German Spring Offensive.

          After William’s death his parents, George and Ellen Taylor, had lost three sons, Fred, Silas and William in the space of 14 months and this left them with only one son surviving, Ernest; a regular soldier who had been captured in late 1914 and who had been a prisoner of war for nearly four years.  He served in the Victoria Rifles, and eventually returned home in early 1919.