William Wells was born in Claydon, Oxfordshire, in early 1883 to James Wells, an agricultural labourer, and his wife Martha Elizabeth, (nee Walters). He was the third child in the family, and two of his younger brothers also fought in WWI. His mother died in 1891. In 1901 he was still with his family, working as a cattleman in Warwickshire but joined the Shropshire Light Infantry and served in India. On 5^th August 1912 he married Amy Egerton at St Lawrence, Gnosall. She had been born at Penkridge 4^th March 1892, daughter of farm labourer William and Mary (nee Whitfield) Egerton from Edgmond Marsh near Newport. In 1901 the family had been at Outwoods and in 1911 at Befcote – but Amy and her sister Mary Esther were then working as servants for an architect/surveyor in Edgbaston. William was killed 26 December 1915 along with two companions by a shell exploding in a dug-out and he was buried at La Brique, Ypres. He was listed as Corporal (Acting Sergeant) and was posthumously awarded the 1914 Star (disembarked 2^nd November 1914), the British War Medal and Victory Medal. His younger brother Samuel Austin (2^nd Shropshire Light Infantry) had died of wounds 22^nd  August 1915, and was also awarded three medals. Amy’s brother, Charley Egerton also died August 1915 and is commemorated on the Gnosall memorial plaques. His younger brother William Henry survived. A third Wells’ brother, Henry Ernest Wells (born 25^th October 1889) also served in WWI, Service No. 663597, Labour Corps, Lancashire Fusiliers, was discharged 19^th February 1919 and awarded the War Medal and Victory Medal. He married his brother’s widow Amy in Stafford in 1918, and they lived at 11 Audmore Road, Gnosall. Amy survived to 1969 and Henry to 1975, and both are buried at Gnosall. La Brique Military Cemetery Historical Information La Brique is a small hamlet named from an old brick works that used to stand nearby before to the First World War. LA BRIQUE CEMETERY No.2 was begun in February 1915 and used until March 1918. The original cemetery consisted of 383 burials laid out in 25 irregular rows in Plot I. After the Armistice, graves were brought in from the battlefields to create Plot II and extend the original plot. There are now 840 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 400 of the burials are unidentified, but special memorials commemorate four casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Across the road is LA BRIQUE CEMETERY No.1, which was begun in May 1915 and used until the following December. It contains 91 First World War burials, four of them unidentified.