AS THE clouds for war gathered over Europe many men volunteered for the British armed forces.
Keighley man William Binns was one of them, signing up for the 6th Battalion West Riding Regiment in 1912 soon after his 17th birthday.
Born in Wilsden in 1892, son of a stone quarry foreman, he grew up in the Hog Holes and Glen Lee areas of Keighley.
By 1912 William was working as an overlooker for worsted spinners Timothy Hird and Sons, who run Acres Mill and Fleece Mills.
Within a month of attesting for the West Riding Regiment, as Private Binns, he was attending the first of his annual Territorial training camps at Flamborough Head.
Two years later, only weeks after the outbreak of the First World War, he signed for overseas service, and embarked for France in spring 1915 on the SS Onward.
Seven months later William was dead.
William’s younger brother George Henry Binns also served in the war, fighting with the Northumberland Fusiliers until his death in October 1917 at the age of 21.
William is buried at Talana Farm Cemetery in France, while his brother’s name is recorded on the Tyne Cot memorial because he has no known final resting place.
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