Forename: William Thomas
Surname: Pontin
Rank: Lance Corporal
Regiment: Gloucestershire Regiment
Institution: St Paul’s Practising School
St Pauls Boys Brigade Football Team 1909
William Thomas Pontin was born on 7 August 1894 and initially lived at 2 Brunswick Street North with his parents. He was a member of the St Paul’s Church Choir along with Charles Rawlings, and St Paul’s Scouts. There is a photograph in the Cheltenham Chronicle and Gloucestershire Graphic of William as a child in the St Paul’s Boys’ Brigade Football Team as the linesman. Thomas Grinnell, who died three months after William, is also on the picture.
After leaving the Practising School, William worked at Norman Brothers Printers in Bennington Street before becoming a Lance Corporal in the 2/5th Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. He fought from 1914 until 31 March 1918 when he was killed trying to hold the line at Holnon Wood. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozières Memorial.