The Great War: A–M · Story 13

William Thomas Billing (1879-1918)

William Billing was not a local lad and was not in the village for long but he is on the Ringstead War Memorial. He had been born at the end of 1879 and baptised in Towcester Church on 4th April 1880. He was the son of William and Sarah Anne and in the 1881 Census he was living with his parents in Spring Gardens, Towcester. His father was a miller’s labourer but by 1891 he was a labourer on a farm, living in 2 Farm Cottages in the High Street.

William first worked as a groom on a farm but when he was eighteen and one month old he enlisted as a soldier. He “attested” for the Northamptonshire Regiment on 23rd February 1897 and was given the Regimental Number 5116. He signed up for twelve years, seven years in service and five in the army reserve. His father, meanwhile, became the landlord of the Plough Inn in Towcester High Street.

Unfortunately, most of his army records have been lost but we know that he served with the 1st Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment in India and the Second Boer War. Exactly when he finished and took up his next career is not clear, but probably in about 1904. Like many other old soldiers, he joined the Northamptonshire Constabulary. In later records it states that he served for fifteen years with the police after his seven years with the Northamptonshire Regiment but this cannot work if the time period is 1897 to 1915 so perhaps they are counting his police service up to 1918.

We must remember that although he might have had a small pension he was still only in his mid-twenties and had his life before him.

We find in the local papers that William was involved in a number of cases in the area. We also see in the Northampton Chronicle and Echo on Thursday 5th July 1906 that at the Northampton Police Sports he came second in the “Throwing A Cricket Ball Competition” with 77½ yards. He is shown as being in the Kettering force. He was also shown as a Police Constable when he married Victoria Alice Payne at St. Andrew’s Church in Kettering on 17th July 1907. At the time he was living at 88 Princes Drive. She was a shoe machinist and the daughter of local newsagent, Tom Payne from Leicestershire and his wife, Elizabeth, from Leeds.

He was transferred to Bulwick a dozen miles north, north-east of Kettering. From the births of his two sons we can see that this was in about 1909/10. In 1911 he was living there in the police house with Victoria, their two sons, William Tom Frederick and Harry Gordon and widowed mother-in-law, Elizabeth Payne. Meanwhile, his brother, Herbert had enlisted in the Grenadier Guards in 1906 and by the end of WW1, which he survived, had become a Company Quarter Master Sergeant.

At some point, William was transferred to Ringstead and the family moved into the police house opposite the New Inn. A daughter, Elizabeth, was born in 1914. Again we pick up William in local news reports. One sad case was that of Ada Jane Robinson and her dog who he found drowned in the river by Ringstead Mill. This was reported in the Northampton Mercury on 20th May 1915. A few months later, in July 1915, he was making ready to return to the army. At Thrapston Corn Exchange on 7th July he was given a cheque for £5 10s. and praised for his work as an instructor for some fifty of the local Special Constables who would take over some to the role of the professionals during the war. Their special role was to protect the water supply against German “infiltrators”.

Soon after, William Billing left his family in Ringstead and joined the Military Foot Police Corps. (There was a separate Mounted Corps.) He was given the Regimental Number P1850

The recruitment into the Military Police had been strictly overseen with a probationary period. With the large-scale trench war of the Western Front, the number of Military Police required soared from an initial 508 to 25,000 by the end of the war, so standards were lowered and civilian police officers were transferred into service en bloc. The Military Police Corps had a number of important roles. One was the manning of “straggler’s posts” or “battle stops” which were collecting points behind the front lines where prisoners of war were taken to be escorted back to base camps. There were also runners and message-carriers to be checked and directed. The walking wounded were also directed to first aid posts and “stragglers” were, if necessary, re-equipped and sent on to re-join their units. In the chaos of many battle zones individuals and small groups of men were often separated from their companies.

Of course, they also apprehended deserters and there were rumours of the military police using their own pistols to carry out summary justice. These stories were probably almost all false but it would not have been, generally, a popular post to hold.

They did not only operate behind the lines, however, and could sometimes be called upon in difficult circumstances to fight alongside the infantry. During the course of the war the Military Police Corps suffered 375 casualties and received a number of gallantry awards. William, with his past experience seems to have acquitted himself well and was appointed first to Lance Corporal and then to Acting Corporal. The Lance Corporal rank, however, was awarded as standard to give more authority to the Military Police over most ordinary soldiers.

We do not know exactly where on the Western Front that William was in action but it was in the Somme area. On 2nd August 1918, as the tide had turned after the final great German offensive, sometimes known as Operation Michael, William was killed. All we know about the circumstances is that it was as a result of an accident. Was this by his own hand or the result of “friendly fire”? He was thirty-nine years old and was buried in the Crouy British Cemetery, some 16 kilometres north-west of Amiens, to the west of the River Somme.

The inscription, chosen by his family, at the bottom of his gravestone was simply:

EVER IN MY THOUGHTS CISS

Who was Ciss? Was it his wife Victoria? His War Gratuity was £23 17s. and this went to his widow, as his sole legatee. He was entitled to the 1915 Star and the British and Victory Medals.

His youngest daughter Elizabeth became a nurse in a Mental Hospital and was living with her mother at “Kynance” Old Watford Road, St Albans in the 1939 Register of England and Wales. Three doors away is “Vimy Ridge”.

One son, William Tom Frederick, known as Fred Billing, became a mounted police constable in WW2. I think he may have spent most of his life in the London area but retired to Ringstead, at 43 Denford Road, where he died on 1st December 1987.

William’s name is on the war memorial in the churchyard and on the Ringstead and Kettering Rolls of Honour.