A/Corporal William Henry Shorto
59th Field Coy. Royal Engineers

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)