Great War VC hero honoured in centenary ceremony
A ceremony has been held to commemorate a Victoria Cross hero of the Great War who died in Shropshire in 1974.
Local schoolchildren and civic dignitaries were among those at the event at the London birthplace of Captain William Allison White on the centenary of his VC award in 1918.
The ceremony was organised by the Borough of Merton and saw the unveiling of a commemorative paving stone in his honour – part of a national scheme to remember VC heroes of the Great War by laying paving stones at the places of their birth on the centenary of the action for which the medal was awarded.
Organisers had launched an appeal through the Shropshire Star to track down any Shropshire relatives of Captain White so they could be invited to attend.
The Shropshire link came because he had died at the Priory nursing home in Wellington on September 13, 1974, at the age of 79. His ashes were taken to his wife's grave in Kent to be interred.
Local genealogists were quickly on the case and discovered that he had a Shropshire daughter, the widowed Mrs Daphne James, from Plealey, near Pontesbury. Unfortunately it turned out that she had only just died, on July 12 this year, at Cliffdale Nursing Home, at the age of 95.
White was awarded the VC for his heroism at September 18, at Gouzeaucourt, France. With the advance held up by enemy machineguns, he repeatedly rushed the machinegun posts and then consolidated the position.
In later life he lived in Kent, and it has not been positively established why he was in a nursing home in Wellington, although it is possible he came to Shropshire to be closer to his daughter in his final days.
