In Memory of WILLIAM HANCOX Private 268967 5th Reserve Battalion Sherwood Foresters "Notts & Derby" Regiment Who died on Friday 31st May 1918 Age 24 Buried B. B6. Grave 7 Beeston Cemetery, Wollaton Rd, Beeston, Notts. Commemorated in Perpetuity by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission & Remembered with Honour

Memorial - Beeston Cemetery

There was a large crowd at Wollaton Road, Cemetery in Beeston, when William Hancox, the son of Charles and Eliza Hancox of 6 William Street, Beeston, was given a full Military Funeral. Representatives included there were officers and boys of the Boys Brigade and members of the Beeston Old Boys.

William Hancox was born in 1894 in Beeston, the third son of what was to become a family of at least twelve born to Charles and Eliza. In 1901, the family was living at 30 Chapel Street, Beeston and Charles was working as a cycle mudguard maker, presumably for the Humber Cycle Company in Beeston. Both Charles and Eliza had been born in Birmingham, where their first children were born, before moving to Beeston about 1889 where, at first, he worked as a forgeman.

Private Hancox was the 38th member of the Beeston Old Boys Association to lose his life during the Great War. He was serving with the 5th Reserve Battalion Sherwood Foresters which, as well as supplying drafts to replace casualties in France, had the job of guarding a stretch of the East Coast against any invasion by the enemy.

Private Hancox died in hospital at Grimsby after an accident during a training accident at Saltfleet in Lincolnshire,

Beeston Gazette & Echo 29th May 1920:

In Memoriam Hancox : In loving memory of Pte. William Hancox of Beeston who was accidentally killed May 30th 1918
We often think of days gone by;
When we were all together,
A shadow o’er our life is cast,

---

Footnotes
¹Beeston, 1901 Census, Piece 3153 Folio 97

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