Albert Knowles Wilson

The son of John, a joiner, and Margaret, Albert was baptised on 9th October 1889 in Bolton. He was educated at Pike’s Lane School, became a Thomason Exhibitioner (a scholarship) in 1902 and attended Bolton Grammar School before entering the Victoria University of Manchester in 1908. He obtained his B.A. in English in 1911, a Teaching Certificate Class II in 1911, and an M.A. in 1912. He was appointed as an Assistant Master in the English Department of Greenock Academy, Scotland, in October 1911 where he was described as having “taught with much acceptance and was a general favourite”.

Albert was a member of the University Officer Training Corps from 1908 to 1912 being promoted from Corporal to 2nd Lieutenant in July 1912. On the outbreak of war was he was gazetted to the 1st Battalion Manchester Regiment. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 29th September 1914. For a time he served at the depot getting drafts ready for the front. A Scottish newspaper reported that he wrote letters back to the UK in which he described his experiences in the trenches and under fire and which showed him to be “in excellent spirits under all difficulties and dangers.” On 12th March 1912, day three of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, Albert’s unit was involved in an advance on a woodland known as the Bois de Biez and he was killed by a bullet wound to the head while directing his men. The platoon sergeant wrote of Albert that he “always put his men before himself and would forego any comfort, so long as he could, by doing so, make sure the men under his command were comfortably settled”. Albert has no known grave.