William Nelson Hayter
Rank: Private
Regiment: 2nd/5th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers
Wife: Mrs Hayter
Address: 105 Bohemia Road, St Leonards
Other Info: An article published in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer on 1st June 1918 reads; “Missing since April 9th. His wife, Mrs Hayter, 105 Bohemia Road, St Leonards, would be glad of any news of him”.
According to CWGC, William died on 9th April 1918. He is remembered at the Loos Memorial on Panel 45 & 46.
Published: June 1918
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In the 1881 census, William Nelson Hayter was at 9 North Street, St Leonards on Sea, age 1, born St Leonards, the son of a blacksmith, Walter.
In the 1911 census, Hayter was living at 37 Silverlands Road, St Leonards on Sea, in a 3 room flat. He was 31, a shop assistant. His wife Edith Beatrice was 26, born Clerkenwell. They had a 2 year-old son, Norman. By the 1914 electoral register they had moved to 83 Southwater Road, also in St Leonards. The 1918 electoral register shows him as a military man absent from 105 Bohemia Road.
The couple had married in 1906 in Hastings, she as Strevens. Her father, also Walter, was, in the 1891 census, a messenger in the House of Lords.
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer, 14 April 1917, has a mention of William as manager of the World's Stores Company branch on King's Road, St Leonards. He had been granted exemption from serving in the military 12 months before. He was not to be called for a month.
The Hastings and St Leonards Observer has a notice in the 7 June 1919 issue: In loving memory of my dear husband, Pte. W.N. Hayter, Lancashire Fusiliers, reported missing, April 9th, 1918, now presumed dead on that date. -- "Gone, but never forgotten."
The widow did not remarry, and died in Croydon in 1966.