Stephen, William
Rank: Captain
Regiment: 5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders
Biography: Son of George Stephen, merchant ; born Fraser-burgh, 27 November 1881 ; educated Fraser-burgh Academy, Aberdeen Grammar School ; M.A., 1903 ; joined his father as a partner in the firm of G. Stephen & Co., merchants and herring exporters, Fraserburgh. In October 1914 he was reinstated as Captain in the Gordon Highlanders, in which regiment he had previously held a Territorial commission. After training in England, he received the offer of a post as musketry instructor, which would have kept him at home. He chose, however, to go to the Front and his Battalion was early in action. After only a few days in France, a sudden German attack upon our trenches resulted in hand-to-hand fighting in which Captain Stephen's company was engaged. At the Battle of the Ancre, near Beaumont-Hamel, on 13 November 1916, as Stephen was leading his company in a daring attack upon the German trenches, he was struck by a hand grenade and killed instantaneously. He was a man known to his friends as "most kindly-dispositioned, loving-hearted, and unselfish", constantly thinking of the comfort and happiness of his men, admired and trusted by them as a friend and leader in more than warfare. In him his own town of Fraserburgh lost a son of whom it was proud, one to whom all local matters were of interest and in whom every good cause found a ready helper.
Date of Death: 13 November 1916
Burial Details: Buried at Y Ravine Cemetery, Beaumont-Hamel, Row A, Grave 37.
Publication: Roll of Service, edited by Mabel Desborough Allardyce. Published 1921.
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