William Henry Wakefield

Rank:	Non-combatant (Postal Worker)
Street:	Botanic Road, Dublin
Townland:
Town/Village:	Dublin
Civil Parish:
Catholic Parish:
Country:
Alternative Address:	Newtownforbes (birthplace); Dargle Rd, Drumcondra; Rutland Sq, Dublin; Drumcondra Rd Lwr, Dublin
Census 1901:	Resident on Rutland Square, Dublin www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Dublin/Rotunda/Rutland_Square/1282616/
Census 1911:	Resident on Drumcondra Road Lower www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Dublin/Drumcondra/Drumcondra_Road_Lower/24552/
Regiment/Unit:	Non-combatant
Regiment Number:	N/A
Date of Death:	10-10-1918
Cause:	Died at sea, (drowning), torpedoing of the R.M.S. Leinster
Memorial:	Plaques at Dun Laoghaire Post Office & Grangegorman Military Cemetery
Information:	William was born in Newtownforbes on the 18 August 1883; his father William was a merchant. William Jr. married Agnes Maguire of Arden Cottage, Tullamore on the 10 October 1911; they had four children. William Jr. worked as a clerk in Dublin and later became a postal sorter initially in the General Post Office (G.P.O). In that capacity with the Kingstown Post Office, he was on the mail boat R.M.S. Leinster when it was torpedoed in 1918, bringing mail, along with passengers, from Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) to the port of Holyhead in Wales. He was one of 567 people to perish in the disaster, twenty-one of whom were also from Dun Laoghaire Post Office. William was one of six Longford people who died in the incident. William's body was reportedly lost at sea. Tragically, it was William and Agnes's seventh wedding anniversary. William's brother George also served in WW1, but was killed in action in 1914.
Parents Names:	Son of William Wakefield and Louisa (née McDonagh), Newtownforbes
Notes:	See Philip Lecane, Torpedoed! The R.M.S. Leinster disaster (Dublin, 2005), p. 144.
Links:	Link to Civil Record of Birth; link to Civil Record of Marriage; The Sinking of the R.M.S. Leinster; Irish War Memorials entry; Find A Grave entry; The Sinking of the RMS Leinster, Reader's Blog, Irish Examiner by George Wakefield.