In Memory of

Private Walter McGreil

16931
1st Battalion Hampshire Regiment
Killed in Action 1st July 1916 Age 21

The CWGC and SDGW both have this soldier’s surname as McGreail, but the Memorial and the NEG have it spelt without an ‘a’.

Walter was an old scholar of St. Mary’s School. He lived at 20, Crown Street, Earlestown and worked at the Old Boston Pit, Haydock. He enlisted in Rotherham, Yorkshire, at the outbreak of war. The NEG list of recruits from the Earlestown office published on October 23rd 1914 includes a "Thos. McGreail" i.e. with an 'a', joining the Royal Horse and Royal Field Artillery.

According to his short obituary published in the Newton and Earlestown Guardian on 7th December 1917, he went missing on the first day of the Battles of the Somme, but was only presumed to have been killed on that day late in 1917.

His name is on the Thiepval Memorial, which bears the names of over 72,000 officers and men who died in the Somme sector and who have no known grave.

Throughout the war, the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire was part of the 11th Brigade of the 4th Division.