Home Page

Major
CYRIL SPENCER WILSON, M.C.
Royal Engineers 

by 

Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Edward De Santis, MSCE, P.E., MinstRE
(July 2024)

Figure 1. Major Cyril Spencer Wilson, M.C., R.E.
(Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum) 

1.  INTRODUCTION 

            Major Wilson’s story during the Great War of 1914-1918 is an interesting one.  He served in rear-area Territorial Force units during the war, units that normally would not have been involved in heavy combat.  He started the war in the 1^st (Wiltshire) Fortress Company (later re-designated the 565^th Army Troops Company) and ended the war in No. 4 Workshop Company.  Despite seeing severe action with both of these companies, he was only slightly wounded once.  Soon after the end of the war he was killed by pneumonia in a nursing home in the U.K. caused by complications from a misdiagnosis of a serious case of dysentery contracted while he was in France. 

2.  FAMILY INFORMATION AND EARLY LIFE

Family Information

            Cyril Spencer Wilson was born on 12 June 1883 in Charlcombe, Somerset.  He was the son of John Henry Wilson (1849-1920), a solicitor and President of the Bath Law Society.  His mother was Edith Wilson, née Lidiard (1848-1933.[1] 

Early Life

            Nothing was uncovered during this research concerning Cyril’s primary education.  He attended Lancing College (1900 to 1901), a public school located in West Sussex, east of Worthing near the village of Lancing, on the south coast of England.  Apparently his education provided him with a strong technical background, allowing him to get a position with the Great Western Railway (GWR) Company in 1902.[2] 

            On 10 April 1902 Wilson began working for the Great Western Railway Company at Swindon, Wiltshire and on 1 July he began a training program with the company as an engineering pupil.  During his training period he worked in the company workshops, laboratory and drawing office.  He completed this training on 14 October and two days later he was posted to the drawing office of the GWR where he was engaged in locomotive design.[3] 

            Wilson became a member of the GWR salaried staff on 16 October 1905 and on 22 July 1907 he became an Assistant Manager at the GWR Carriage and Wagon Department in Swindon where he also worked as a draughtsman. 

Figure 2.  The GWR Works at Swindon, c. 1908.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia) 

            Wilson’s technical skills were such that he also became an inventor.  He licensed the following inventions to the Great Western Railway Company during his time with the company: 

• Patent Number 26753 of 1909: An invention of improvements in diaphragm signalling horns.[4]  

• Patent Number 19198 of 1910: An invention of improvements in steam trains.[5]

• Patent Number 8511 of 1913: An invention of improvements to automatic valves for attaching to high pressure reservoirs.[6]

• Patent Number 22784 of 1913: An invention of improvements in valves for high pressure gas tanks (second gas valve).[7]

            The National Archives references for these patents were worded as follows:

“License from Cyril Spencer Wilson (engineer, Swindon, Wiltshire) to Great Western Railway Company for use of invention of improvements . . . “

            It appears that while working for the GWR he came up with these various inventions. He then licensed them to the company.  What is not clear is whether he was paid by the company for each of these licenses or whether he simply gave them to the company since he was an employee.  It also is not clear whether he was truly an engineer.  Had he received a degree in engineering from Lancing College or was the term “engineer” in the patent description a generic term?       

            While working for the GWR Wilson also served in the Army Territorial Force (T.F.).  When the Territorial Force was created from the former Volunteer Force by the Haldane Reforms in 1908, it was organised with one or more Fortress Companies of the Royal Engineers in each of the coast defence commands. Where there were no pre-existing Volunteer R.E. units in the area new ones were raised. Thus the Dorsetshire & Wiltshire Fortress Royal Engineers were formed in Southern Coast Defences, primarily to operate the defences of Portland Harbour. Although formally separate units administered by different county Territorial Associations and with their own positions in the Royal Engineers Order of Precedence, the Dorset company at Weymouth (precedence 18) and the Wiltshire company at Swindon (precedence 11) were linked administratively and commanded by a single officer with the rank of Major.  Wilson would join the Wiltshire unit.[8] 

            The Wiltshire unit was a Works Company based at the Drill Hall, Church Road, Swindon, which it shared with a T.F. company of the Wiltshire Regiment and the 1^st South Western Mounted Brigade Field Ambulance of the Royal Army Medical Corps (T.F.). The Works Company was almost entirely recruited from the Great Western Railway's Swindon Works.

3.  COMMISSIONING AND TRAINING 

Commissioning           

            On 16 May 1908 Wilson was commissioned a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Works Company, Wiltshire Fortress Royal Engineers.  While he remained employed by the GWR Company he took part in training activities with his T.F. unit.  He was promoted to Lieutenant on 26 November 1911[9] and to Captain on 16 October 1912.[10]  

Training 

            On the outbreak of war in August 1914, the fortress engineers moved to their war stations in the coastal defences. The Wiltshire Company was undergoing its annual training at Fort Purbrook, Portsmouth, and went straight from there to Weymouth, where along with the Dorset company and work details from infantry battalions, it worked on completing the Portland defences.  The officers in the company at this time were:[11]

·       Major Frederick George Wright, R.E. (T.F.): Officer Commanding

·       Captain Cyril Spencer Wilson, R.E. (T.F.): Second in Command

·       Lieutenant John Dawson, R.E. (T.F.): Section Leader[12]

·       Lieutenant Septimus Edward Tyrwhitt, R.E. (T.F.): Section Leader

·       Lieutenant David Willliams, R.E. (T.F.): Section Leader

·       Lieutenant George Ernest Crisford Knapp, R.E. (T.F.): Section Leader[13]

·       Company Sergeant Major Henry Cotens Rodda, R.E.[14]

Figure 3.  Lieutenant George Ernest Crisford Knapp, R.E. (T.F.), c. 1914.
(Image courtesy of British Army Ancestors)

            Shortly after the outbreak of war, the men of the T.F. were invited to volunteer for overseas service.  War Office instructions were issued to form those men who had only signed up for home service into reserve or 2^nd Line units. The titles of these 2^nd Line units were the same as the original, but distinguished by a '2/' prefix. They absorbed and trained most of the recruits that flooded in, and supplied drafts to the units on active service. Some of the extra recruits for the Wiltshire companies came from the Weymouth area, most of the others from the GWR works.[15]

            The Portland defence works were completed by November 1914, and the men underwent a month of strenuous training, including heavy bridge building and constructing trenches at night. Wilson’s company then embarked aboard the SS Blackwell and arrived at Le Havre on 20 January 1915 to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front.   

4.  POSTINGS AND CAMPAIGN SERVICE

The Somme (1915-1917) 

Captain Wilson and his company spent the autumn and winter of 1915–16 building a new mill at Steenwerck and a hospital nearby at Trois Ambres, as well as working on roads, light railways and water supplies.  In April 1915 the company moved to Ypres to build floating bridges over the local canals and in September 1915 the company’s designation was changed to 565^th (Wiltshire) Army Troops Company.  On 1 January 1916 Captain Wilson was Mentioned in Despatches in the New Years Honours List.[16] 

 Army Troops Companies worked primary in the rear area on water supply, corps defence lines, observation posts for artillery, gun positions for heavy artillery, trench tramways, road-screening, corps engineer dumps and workshops and erection of hangars for the Royal Flying Corps.  Army Troops Companies were smaller than divisional field companies.  They were established with three officers and 139 other ranks, but they were provided with mechanical transport which was an advantage they had over the divisional companies.[17]  From the list of officers published above, it is obvious that the 565^th (Wiltshire) Army Troops Company was well over strength in officers. 

The Battle of the Somme opened on 1 July 1916 and shortly afterwards the 565^th (Wiltshire) Army Troops Company was moved into the area to camp at Bronfay Farm and worked on water supplies in the Carnoy Valley. This work continued throughout the Somme offensive, and the company built a pumping station on the River Somme with a water pipeline to Trônes Wood after its capture. In the spring of 1917 the company was engaged in building a Corps Headquarters camp at Foucaucourt, then a new Headquarters camp for Fourth Army at Villers-Carbonnel near Peronne. This was in the devastated area beyond the old German front line after the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich). It then worked on five heavy steel bridges over the Somme at La Chapelette near Peronne.[18] On 4 June 1917 Captain Wilson was awarded the Military Cross on the King’s Birthday Honours List[19] for his performance of duty during the Somme campaign. 

In 1917, the men of the 565^th (Wiltshire) Army Troops Company (ex-Wiltshire Fortress) received new Regimental Numbers in keeping with Kitchener’s New Army organizational structure.  The range of numbers initially allotted to the company was 520001 to 522000.  This was later changed to 520001 to 521779.[20] 

Dunkirk (1917)  

The Third Ypres Offensive was about to begin, and Fourth Army Headquarters was switched to Dunkirk to command a thrust up the coast to meet the expected breakthrough in Flanders. The 565^th (Wiltshire) Army Troops Company was sent to fit out the Terminus Hotel at Leffrinckoucke, where some shelling was experienced. Detachments installed water tanks and pumps at Dunkirk docks, and constructed a musketry school near Abbeville.[21] 

In August 1917 Wilson was appointed a Temporary Major and the following month he was made Officer Commanding No. 4 Workshop Company.  During his time in command of the 565^th (Wiltshire) Army Troops Company, the company suffered only one fatality.  520116 Sapper Cecil William Johnston died on 17 April 1917, cause of death not known, but it may have happened during the shelling at Leffrinckoucke. 

Wilson married Amy Elizabeth Pound at St. Martin’s Church in London in January 1918 while home on leave from the front. 

The German Spring Offensive (1918) 

            The German spring offensive, also known as Kaiser Schlacht ("Kaiser's Battle") or the Ludendorff offensive, was a series of German attacks along the Western Front during the war, beginning on 21 March 1918. Following American entry into the war in April 1917, the Germans decided that their only remaining chance of victory was to defeat the Allies before the United States could ship soldiers across the Atlantic and fully deploy its resources. The German Army had gained a temporary advantage in numbers as nearly 50 divisions had been freed by the Russian defeat and withdrawal from the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.[22] 

            Because of the size of the forces used by the Germans in their spring offensive, it was necessary to call up units from the rear areas to assist in maintaining and restoring the British front line.  In the British Fifth Army area General Gough ordered 2,000 rear echelon troops – mainly engineers (including 500 Americans), tunnellers, and signallers – to be formed into a unit under temporary command of Major General P.G. Grant, Fifth Army Chief Engineer, to work on the defences and fight if necessary. Brigadier-General Carey, due to return from leave on the afternoon of the 26^th to take command of a division, was notified that he was instead to take command of this force, to be known as "Carey's Force".  Wilson’s No. 4 Workshop Company was one of the rear echelon units called up for Carey’s Force. 

            To defend against the German attacks, Carey’s Force was divided into three Sectors; Right, Center and Left.  No. 4 Workshop Company was allotted to Center Sector along with the following units:[23] 

·         Fifth Army Infantry School

·         Fifth Army Sniping School

·         253^rd Tunnelling Company

·         217^th Army Troops Company 

The units were to take up defensive positions from Marcelcave (inclusive) to Bois d’Accroche (exclusive).  The Center Sector was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel O. Graham, D.S.O., Rifle Brigade. 

            Carey’s Force also contained other engineer units.  The Right Sector included the 213^th Army Troops Company, R.E. and the 353^rd Electrical and Mechanical Company, R.E. while the Left Sector contained the 144^th Army Troops Company, R.E. and the 213^th Army Troops Company, R.E. 

            On the night of 26/27 March 1918, the night that Carey Force was formed, Amiens was in danger of being rushed. In great force, and with a large proportion of fresh troops to bear down the opposition of tired British divisions which had been fighting, for nearly a week without rest, the Germans had pressed on to within striking distance of the city.  No. 4 Workshop Company appears to have been in close proximity to Amiens, as records indicate that Wilson was wounded there.[24]  One man in Wilson’s company was killed during these operations.  44886 Sergeant Frank Dixson was killed in action on 29 March.[25] 

Figure 4.  Map Showing the German Spring Offensive, 1918.
(Image courtesy of the Warfare History Network)

            Major Wilson’s wound appears to have been slight, as he was able to carry on in command until October.  In that month he was evacuated to England from France suffering from dysentery and brought home to London where his brother, Harry Lydiard Wilson, a doctor recently returned from service in Egypt, examined him and reported his findings in a letter dated 13 November 1918:

"This is to certify that Major C.S. Wilson, M.C, R.E., died on Sunday 27th of October 1918, in London of pneumonia complicating amoebic dysentery, an incident of active service in France. The facts are as follows: - I was in medical attendance on deceased from the time of his landing in England till the day of his death. In conjunction with myself were Major C.G. Low, I.M.S., of the London School of Tropical Medicine: Mr. Clifford Dobell, who, assistant to Major Balfour, acted as Protozoologist in the case, and Captain Sir Thomas Horder M.D., consulting physician. During September it was reported to me that Major Wilson was in the 27th Stat: Hosp:, France, for "dysentery slight", and had been altogether sick in France for 3 or 4 weeks with diarrhea, the passing of blood and vomiting, On discharge from hospital Major Wilson was sent home on four weeks special leave, which had been granted him prior to his illness, on account of three years and nine months continuous service in France, and apparently he was sent home on this leave as a cured man. Immediately on his arrival in London Major Wilson called on me, and I examined him, and with the aid of Major Balfour discovered at once that amoebae (E, Histolytica) and their cysts were present in his stools, and it became obvious that this serious variety of dysentery had not been cured in France! (possibly not even diagnosed). It became necessary to place him in a nursing home for correct treatment of this particular variety of dysentery, and under careful supervision of his stools, and this was done. Unhappily, owing to the weakened condition in which he had become from four weeks loss of time in France, I regret to say that Major Wilson contracted pneumonia as a complication while he was in the nursing home, and from this he was unable to rally." [26] 

            At the time of his death, Wilson’s home address was listed as 3 Upper Montague Street, Russell Square in London.  He is commemorated on the war memorial at Swindon. 

            Probate of Wilson’s Will took place in Bristol on 7 February 1919 with his effects going to his widow in the amount of £4,500, 1 shilling and 7 pence (about $330,700 US in 2024 currency).

5. MEDALS, AWARDS AND DECORATIONS

            Except for a card indicating his Mention in Despatches in January 1916, no medal index card or medal rolls for Major Wilson were located on Ancestry.com or other websites.  However, based on his service in France and Flanders, he would have been awarded the Military Cross, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal with Mention in Despatches oak leaf.  His wife would have received a Memorial Plaque to commemorate his death. 

NOTE: The medals and plaque shown below are not those of Major Wilson.  They are presented here for illustrative purposes only. 

Figure 5.  (Left to right): The Military Cross, 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and
Victory Medal with M.I.D. Oak Leaf.
(Image from the author’s collection)

Figure 6.  The Memorial Plaque.
(Image from the author’s collection)

REFERENCES: 

Books 

1. CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY.  United States Army in the World War, 1917-1919.  Military Operations of the American Expeditionary Force.  Volume 4.  United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1989.  

2. INSTITUTION OF ROYAL ENGINEERS.  The History of the Corps of Royal Engineers.  Volume V.  The Institution of Royal Engineers, Chatham, Kent, 1952.  

Census 

1911 Census of England and Wales. 

Civil Documents 

1. Commonwealth War Graves Commission Memorial.

2. U.K. Civil Engineers List, 1818-1930.

3. 1919 Probate Calendar.  

Family Tree 

Ancestry.com: Cyril Spencer Wilson (by cduncan_simcoe). 

Internet Web Sites 

1. 565^th Army Troops Company, Royal Engineers [formerly 1^st Wiltshire Fortress Company (TF) Swindon].

https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/community/7197

2. Imperial War Museum, Lives of the First World War: Lancing College.

https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/story/40522

3. Imperial War Museum, Lives of the First World War: Captain, Royal Engineers.

https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/searchlives/Royal%20Engineers/filter/type%3Dagent

4. Lancing College War Memorial.

(www.hambo.org/lancing).

5. University of Wyoming, Pounds to Dollars Conversion.

https://www.uwyo.edu/numimage/currency.htm

6. Roads to the Great War.

http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/2023/01/eyewitness-slowing-down-ludendorff.html

7. Wikipedia: Dorsetshire and Wiltshire Fortress Royal Engineers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorsetshire_and_Wiltshire_Fortress_Royal_Engineers

8. Warfare History Network.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/wwis-massive-german-spring-offensive-of-1918/ 

London Gazette 

1. The London Gazette, 19 January 1912, p. 456.

2. The London Gazette, 17 June 1913, p. 4310.

3. Supplement to the London Gazette, 1 January 1916, p. 28.

4. Supplement to the London Gazette, 4 June 1917, pp. 5476 and 5485.  

Military Documents 

Mention in Despatches Index Card, 1 January 1916. 

National Archives (UK) 

1. License from Cyril Spencer Wilson (engineer, Swindon, Wiltshire) to Great Wester Railway Company, RAIL 252/1938.

2. License from Cyril Spencer Wilson (engineer, Swindon, Wiltshire) to Great Wester Railway Company, RAIL 252/1599.

3. License from Cyril Spencer Wilson (engineer, Swindon, Wiltshire) to Great Wester Railway Company, RAIL 252/1768.

4. License from Cyril Spencer Wilson (engineer, Swindon, Wiltshire) to Great Wester Railway Company, RAIL 252/1751.

5. Military Service Papers, 1914-1920, WO 374/75517.

ENDNOTES: