A/Corporal William Henry Shorto
59th Field Coy. Royal Engineers
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1914 (Mons) Star
William Henry Shorto was born at St Peter
Port, Guernsey in 1883 to John (stonemason and Royal
Naval Reserve) and Susan Shorto. He became a mason himself,
enlisted in the Royal Engineers in 1901 and served for
a year in Somaliland. Transferred to the reserve in
1905 he was re-engaged sapper in 1913 and mobilised
in August 1914. By then he was married to Ethel and
they had four children and working as a mason waller.
As a member of the BEF, William took part
in the retreat from Mons and described some of his experiences
in his diary, recently discovered by his granddaughter,
Michelle Parnwell (nee Shorto). After further service
in France and the UK, he was discharged as corporal
in 1919, and returned to Guernsey. In 1927/28 the family,
by then they had eight children, moved to Romford in
Essex where he served as a railway policeman and where
he died in c.1964.
William
Shorto's Diary
(Details and photograph courtesy of
Michelle Parnwell)