Williams, Berwyn Glynduir S/41688 (1899 - 1918)

Private, 4th Bn. Seaforth Highlanders

Buried at Marfaux British Cemetery

Commemorated at City of Glasgow Roll of Honour at Glasgow City Chambers

Berwyn Glynduir Williams, whose name echoes the valleys of Wales, was born and brought up in Glasgow. He was the son of John and Lilly, and in 1916, when Berwyn went up to Glasgow University to study medicine, the family lived at 104 King's Park Road, Cathcart. He described his father as a commercial traveller. That autumn Berwyn was 17, too young to join the army, and he enrolled for classes in Zoology and Chemistry.

He did quite well and gained a merit certificate in Professor John Graham Kerr's class of Zoology. He stayed long enough to sit the First Professional exam in Medicine in March 1917. Despite his distinction in the classwork of Zoology, he failed that subject, but passed in Chemistry. It was to be his last exam. He must have reached his eighteenth birthday and in May, 1917, he enlisted as a Private in 1/4th Seaforth Highlanders.

His war lasted little more than a year and ended near Rheims on 20th July 1918. The commune of Marfaux had been captured by the Germans and after some very fierce fighting it was re-taken on 23rd July by the 51st (Highland) and 62nd (West Riding) Divisions along with the New Zealand Cycling Battalion.

Private Berwyn Glynduir Williams was killed in this action, aged 19, and is buried in Marfaux Cemetery. His dissecting kit, a reminder of the lost prospect of completing his medical studies at Glasgow, is held by the University's Hunterian Museum in its collection of medical and scientific instruments.

Reproduced with permission from the University of Glasgow Roll of Honour: http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/ww1-intro/