WILLIAM Henry Spedding was only 16 in 1914 but he couldn’t wait to sign up for the Great War.

He became one of Keighley’s ‘Gallant Sons’, enlisting in the first year of the First World War, and had to remain at home in Britain until he was 19.

William wasn’t to see his next birthday: just a few months after reaching the frontline in France the infantry corporal was killed during an attack on the Germans’ Hindenburg Line.

William had been born in Gargrave in 1898, and at the age of 12 started working half-time as a cotton ring doffer while still at school.

Sometime during the next four years he moved to Keighley, working for Hall & Stells before joining the West Riding Regiment.

Once in France, Corporal Spedding joined an attack on Bullecourt and trenches of the nearby Hindenburg Line in May 1917, his battalion suffering severe losses.

He was one of the 88 soldiers posted missing, his superior officers checking whether he had ended up in a hospital or been taken prisoner by the Germans.

In February 1918, following following nine months of fruitless searching, the army concluded that William had died in the battle.

He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal for his war service.