Private William Gianone

5379 Private William Gianone
1/19 Battalion London Regiment
Age unknown
Died 29 September 1916
Commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial

1/19 Battalion London Regiment (St Pancras) was headquartered in 1914 at 76 High Street Camden Town.

In mid-September the Battalion was engaged in the battle of the Somme and lost around half of its number at High Wood. Included in these was the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Hamilton MC, killed on 15 September as the wood was finally taken by the British.

Hamilton was 32 years old and was attached to 1/19 Londons from The Queens (Royal West Surrey) Regiment. He lived at 42 Eaton Square, Belgravia and is buried at Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz.

The battalion was again in action from 1-4 October at Le Transloy and William Gianone was probably killed in the preliminary stages of this - probably somewhere near Eaucourt L'Abbaye.

Major Charles Herbert Fair DSO appears to have been in command of the battalion in late September 1916. He had been educated at Marlborough College, Wiltshire and at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he had gained first class honours in classics and been captain of the college rugby XV.

Fair was a schoolmaster at Haileybury College, Hertfordshire and had been posted to the 1/19th London Regiment in 1ate October 1915.

On 5 November 1916 he noted in a letter he noted that he was now the longest serving officer with the battalion – it had suffered over 100 per cent turnover in 12 months.