Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthMarch 10, 1898
Place of BirthStanley, York, New Brunswick
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinJames Ward, father, Stanley, York, New Brunswick
Trade / CallingFarmer
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number793953
Service Record Link to Service Record
Battalion87th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Address at EnlistmentStanley, York, New Brunswick
Date of EnlistmentMarch 10, 1916
Age at Enlistment18
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathAugust 3, 1975
Age at Death77
Buried AtYork Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario
PlotSection D Lot 39

Ward, Lloyd Wilson

Lloyd Wilson Ward was born on 10 March 1898 in Stanley, York, New Brunswick. His parents James Ward and Margaret Ellen (Nellie) Clarkson married on 13 March 1901 in the Registration District of York, likely in Williamsburg. The family farmed in the Stanley area known as the Ward Settlement. Another child, daughter Sarah, was born in 1901.

Lloyd signed his attestation papers on his birthday 10 March 1916 in Chatham, New Brunswick. His occupation was given as farmer and his father James in Stanley as next of kin. Previous military service was with the 71st (York) Regiment. As a Private with the 132nd Battalion, Lloyd arrived in England on the Corsican on 5 November 1916.

After his arrival in England, Lloyd was struck off strength to the 87th Battalion on 5 December 1916. After spending some time with the 4th Entrenching Battalion he joined the unit in the field in mid April of 1917. The 87th (Canadian Grenadier Guards) Battalion had began recruiting in September 1915 in Montreal, the surrounding districts, and also in mining districts elsewhere in the Quebec. After sailing to England in April 1916, the battalion was stationed there as part of the 12th Infantry Brigade (until June) and then 11th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Canadian Infantry Division until August of the same year. On August 11/12, the battalion crossed over to France and served the duration of the war as part of the 11th Infantry Brigade, 4th Canadian Infantry Division, participating the major battles. High losses to the battalion were sustained at Vimy Ridge, with a 87th Battalion monument erected onsite.

In early January of 1918 Lloyd was granted a two week leave to the UK, returning on the 19th. A couple of days later he was admitted to the No 3 Canadian Field Ambulance, transferring to the No 51 General Hospital on the 25th. Over the course of the next months Lloyd received treatment in a number of facilities (vdg and orchitis), eventually discharged in mid July and rejoining the unit on 18 August. By then the Canadians had entered in to what would later be known as the 100 Days Offensive, the final period of the war during which the Allies launched a series of offensives against the Central Powers on the Western Front from 8 August to 11 November 1918, beginning with the Battle of Amiens.

In late February of 1919 Lloyd was admitted to the No 11 Canadian Field Ambulance and then transferred to the No 3 Canadian General Hospital on 2 March (vds and scabies). He was discharged from the hospital on 2 May and by the end of the month was back in England.

On 29 July 1919, in the borough of Tower Hamlets in London, Lloyd married Nellie Stribling. Born in 1898 in Bethnal Green, London, Nellie was the daughter of Walter Stribling and Harriet Collins. Her parents had married in 1879 in Tower Hamlets and by the time of the 1911 census Walter, a night watchman, was raising the remaining children, Harriet having died in 1910. At the time of the marriage Nellie was working as a cashier.

Lloyd returned to Canada in August 1919 on the Belgic, arriving in Halifax on the 23rd. He was discharged from service on the 31st in Halifax, proposed residence given as Fredericton. His wife Nellie arrived in Canada aboard the Baltic on 27 September 1919.

Lloyd and Nellie settled in Napagodan in Douglas Parish, York in New Brunswick, a community not far from Stanley. At the time of the 1921 census Lloyd was working as a labourer at odd jobs. Nellie made two trips back to England in those early years, 10 July to 21 October in 1920 and 21 October 1921 to 19 April 1922. It is not known if the couple separated and Nellie returned to England or if Nellie died, but at some point Lloyd remarried. His second wife Minnie Mary was born on 4 March 1904.

By the mid 1930’s Lloyd was living in Redditt, Ontario, a village about 30 kilometres north of Kenora in northwestern Ontario. A Voters list of the day indicated that he was married and worked as a shopman, likely with the Canadian National Railway. While there he joined the Kenora Branch of the Canadian Legion.

Lloyd died on 3 August 1975 in the North York Branson Hospital in Willowdale, a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto in the district of North York, Ontario. At the time of his death he was survived by his wife Minnie, daughter Dian Davenport and her husband Jim, and three grandchildren. He was predeceased by his father James (1945), mother Nellie (1973), both interred in the Hillcrest United Church Cemetery in Stanley, and by his sister Sarah (Charles) Fullarton (1966) who is interred in the Saint Peter’s Presbyterian Cemetery in Stanley. Lloyd’s wife Minnie died at the Etobicoke General Hospital on 30 September 1993. Lloyd and Minnie are interred in the York Cemetery in North York, Toronto.

By Judy Stockham

 

Minnie’s grave marker photograph by Islington, findagrave.com


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