Peterborough & The Great War

Biography

Walter William Grimwood was born in Ipswich to parents Walter Charles and Sarah Grimwood, and was one of eight children.

On the 1911 census, Walter was listed as a lithographic printer.

Walter enlisted on 1 November 1915, into the Royal Army Medical Corps and served until discharge on 20 March 1920.  Walter passed through Peterborough East Station and signed the visitors’ book on 6 August 1916, when he was stationed at Killingmoor Camp, Harrogate.

He joined Hospital Ship Essequibo in April 1917; the Essequibo was a British hospital ship loaned to the Canadian Government in 1917 as one of five Canadian hospital ships employed on the transatlantic run to Portland, Maine. A year later he achieved promotion to Acting Corporal and was moved to the Nursing Section aboard HM Ambulance Transport Neuralia, still sailing to Portland, Maine. He was demoted in January 1919 to Private as punishment for failing to see that his men were up at ‘Reveille’. On 20 March 1919, he was recorded at Marseille where he undertook his discharge medical before returning to the UK. He was awarded the Allied Victory Medal and British War Medal for his service.

Walter had married Ella Barr on Christmas Day, 1917, and they lived at 82 New Cut West, Ipswich. By 1939, Walter had resumed his career as a lithographic printer, living on Nacton Road. The couple had a daughter Joan who was born in 1931. His wife Ella died in 1942, and Walter remarried in 1948, to Amy Cain. There does not appear to have been any children from either marriage. Walter died at East Suffolk Hospital Ipswich on 29 August 1956, aged 59.

Please get in touch if you can tell us more about Walter and his family.

http://bit.ly/2kkCfUO for more information about Canadian Hospital ships in WW1.