William George Mant

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Grave/Memorial:  		Mant, William G

6 January 1889, Horsell, Surrey

William and Alice (née Baker)

Royal Engineers, Headquarters 2nd Division

14156

Driver

28 September 1918, France, age 29

Flesquieres Hill British Cemetery, France: II. D. 6. 		   

Biography:
William George Mant was born, on 6 January 1889, at Horsell, Surrey. He was the son of William, a carter, and Alice (née Baker).
Alice died immediately following William’s birth. His father remarried a couple of years later and William had a step-sister and a
step-brother.

After leaving school, William joined the Army (probably at 18). The 1911 census tells us that he was a driver with the 7th
Division, Tel [signals] Company, Royal Engineers; he would have driven a horse-drawn waggon.

In November 1914, William was with 15th Field Company, Royal Engineers. They embarked at Southampton on November 11th
and arrived at Le Havre at 2am on the 7th.

In 1918, William was with Headquarters 2nd Division. William George Mant was killed on 28 September 1918. He is buried, in
grave II. D. 6, within Flesquieres Hill British Cemetery, France.



Flesquieres village was attacked by the 51st (Highland) Division, with tanks, on the 20th November 1917, in the
Battle of Cambrai, but held for a time by a German officer with just a few men; it was captured on the 21st. It
was lost in the later stages of the battle, and retaken on the 27th September 1918, by the 3rd Division.

Flesquieres Hill Cemetery was originally made by the 2nd Division, in 1918, behind a German cemetery; but the
German graves were removed after the Armistice. Plots III-VIII were created on the site of the German
cemetery and in them were reburied 688 British soldiers from the battlefields of Havrincourt, Flesquieres,
Marcoing and Masnieres and from a few other burial grounds.

There are now over 900 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, over one-third are
unidentified and special memorials are erected to five officers and men from the United Kingdom and two from
New Zealand, known or believed to be buried among them.


William George Mant is also commemorated on the memorial tablet within Knaphill Holy Trinity Church.