Evans, Lieutenant William Laurence

Service highlights

  • Birth: 8 May 1890, St Marys, Ontario
  • Service number: 310874
  • Unit: Royal Army Medical Corps, serving with the 55th (West Lancashire) Division and attached as Medical Officer to the 1/6th The King’s (Liverpool Regiment)
  • Enlisted: May 1915 (joined the Canadian Army Medical Corps, later transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps)
  • Death: 11 August 1916, near Guillemont, Somme, France
  • Burial: Peronne Road Cemetery, Maricourt, France, Grave III. F. I.

A Life and Service Remembered

William Laurence Evans grew up in St Marys and carried that small town steadiness with him as he moved into adulthood. After school, he spent several years working for Massey Harris in Regina, then turned back to the work he wanted most: medicine at the University of Toronto. He graduated in 1915, the son of William James and Sarah Agnes Evans, he would follow in his brother John’s footsteps and chose service over the comfort of a new practice, joining the Canadian Army Medical Corps and soon transferring into the Royal Army Medical Corps before sailing overseas later that year.

In France, he was assigned to a field ambulance of the 55th (West Lancashire) Division and became Medical Officer to the 1/6th King’s (Liverpool Regiment). By the summer of 1916 the Somme was swallowing whole units. For a medical officer, duty meant moving toward danger instead of away from it: working under shellfire, treating men where they fell, and trying to keep the line of care going when everything around it was breaking apart.

On 11 August 1916, near the village of Guillemont, a shell explosion buried one of the men. Evans was out in the open digging him free when another shell struck and killed him instantly. He was 26. It is the kind of death that tells you exactly who someone was: not only a doctor, but a man who stayed in the worst moment and tried to bring somebody back.

The Evans family would face more sorrow. His brother, Able Seaman John Clow Evans, was later lost at sea in 1917 while serving with the Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve. Both brothers are commemorated on the cenotaph in St. Marys

Major battles and operations

  • Somme front service (55th Division), February 1916 to 11 August 1916
  • Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916 to 11 August 1916 (served until his death)

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