Michelson - father and son

The names of a father and son are included on the War Memorial, the father having been killed in the First World War and his son in the Second World War.

WILLIAM SMITH MICHELSON was a farm worker, married with four children, who lived at Bedehouse Bank, Bourne, and enlisted in the Lincolnshire Regiment when the war broke out in 1914. He came home on leave only once and after bidding him farewell at the town railway station, the family never saw him again. While serving with the 8th Battalion in Belgium, he was reported missing presumed killed on 7th October 1917. He was 35 years old and his family learned later that he had been blown up by a shell at the Battle of Ypres. There is no known grave but is commemorated at the Tyne Cot Memorial to the missing in Belgium. He left a widow and four children.

Although his name is included on the town's War Memorial, for some unaccountable reason it was not among those on the Roll of Honour in the Abbey Church at Bourne. His widow Rosamund had died in 1963 and so his daughter, Mrs Margaret Taylor, then aged 74, of 22 Willoughby Road, Bourne, asked for the omission to be remedied. She was told that there was no room and so she approached the Royal British Legion who intervened and after consultations with church authorities, a local sign writer was commissioned to add his name on 13th March 1985.

CLARENCE ERNEST MICHELSON was the youngest of his four children. He served as a sapper with the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and was drowned during an exercise off the Norfolk coast on 9th November 1944 at the age of 29. He is buried in the town cemetery at Bourne where his grave is marked with a headstone from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (pictured right). His father is remembered on the same headstone.

 

Photo courtesy Don Fisher

ADDING A LOST NAME

Signwriter Fred Felstead adds the missing name of William Smith Michelson to the Roll of Honour in the nave of the Abbey Church after the intervention of the Royal British Legion. Also in the picture are, left to right, Councillor Don Fisher, who was instrumental in adding the name, Michelson's daughter, Mrs Margaret Taylor, and Eric Walton, chairman of the legion's Bourne branch.

See also Roll of Honour

Return to War Memorial

Go to:     Main Index    Villages Index