William Francis John Prince

Rank 
Second Lieutenant
Regiment 
Royal Air Force
Date of death 
30 May 1918
Age of death 
20
Address 
2 Woodgrange Villas
Peel Road
South Woodford
Woodford
E18 2LJ
Address source 
1911 Census
Cemetery / Memorial 
United Kingdom
Biography 

Born in 1897 at Woodford, son of Herbert (Stockbrokers Clerk) and Sarah Roseanna Prince. 1901: With his family at Cumberland Villa Stanley Road, South Woodford. 1911: A Scholar with his family at 2 Woodgrange Villas, Peel Road, South Woodford. He attended Chigwell School.

He joined 9th London Regiment and was in France from April 1917, the same year that his father died.

Posted on attachment to the Royal Air Force, in May 1918 he was at No.1 (Observer) School of Air Gunnery, which had its Headquarters and Officers accommodation at the Imperial Hotel in Hythe. There were two airfields for the school, at Dymchurch and New Romney (Littlestone). It is believed William Prince was at the latter location on 30th May 1918 when he went into the sea at New Romney to bathe. The official cause of death was accidental drowning in the sea, but a contemporary newspaper reports in the Chelmsford Chronicle and Essex Newsman suggest the accidental drowning occurred after he had been accidentally shot by an airman.

His medal card completed after the war gives the contact address for his awards as Murton House 29 Higham Road, Woodford Green. This was the address of the Riggenbach family, whose son Francis was killed in September 1918, the same year that saw the death of his Swiss father Franz. Whether the address is a coincidence, or there may have been a connection between the two families has not been established. The CWGC suggests the Prince family lived at "Fernhurst" 31 Grove Road, South Woodford after the war.

Research by Adrian Lee, Local Historian

Sources:

Ancestry.com

Essex Newsman