Talk:John Williamson (footballer, born 1887)

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Candidate for identification?[edit]

The CWGC records a John Robert Williamson, Gunner Royal Field Artillery, who died on 10 November 1915 - no age or family details stated - and is buried at Silksworth churchyard in Co Durham - now a suburb of Sunderland. The same CWGC site has a PDF of the page from the (predecessor) Imperial War Graves Commission's published list of war graves in the county, which shows his name was printed as J.R. Williamson but a later hand has written in the full Christian names and 'died of wounds', which suggests he had been evacuated from the front and lived long enough to die in England. See link https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/354702/john-robert-williamson/.

I suggest he could be a candidate for identification with the player if published sources - such as newspaper obituary or local history article - could be found that link him with the Sunderland player. Although Williamson the player is mentioned on the Professional Footballers' Association's website Football in the First World War as a Sunderland team member in season 1914-15, he does not (presently at least) appear in the lists of Aston Villa and Sunderland players known to have served/been killed in the war. A soldier born in 1887 would be 27 or 28 in 1915, so it is not unlikely he could have volunteered to enlist at the end of the season.

It might also help if someone could look up his details in Soldiers Died In The Great War, published by HMSO, to see if there are any matching details to the player. Their entries usually record birthplace and place of enlistment as well as death date. Cloptonson (talk) 07:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE - RULED OUT. The soldier, according to Struway2, was reported to have been only 19 at his death, in Brighton War Hospital. So definitely not the player. (See talkpage talkpoint John Williamson (footballer, born 1887) in the WikiProject Football Talk Page of today.)Cloptonson (talk) 20:50, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]