William Edward Burdett

Name	William Edward Burdett
Corps	Shropshire Light Infantry
Rank	Private
Service No.	38534
Date/Place of entry
Date of death	1961
Memorial/Grave

William Edward Burdett (formerly Burditt) was born in April 1899 in Oakengates, Shropshire, the eldest child of George Burditt and his Lancashire-born wife Mary Jane. George was one of the eleven children of Anne Gray Aldwinckle, a daughter of the well to do Middleton Aldwinckle farming family and her husband Charles Burditt. To read about this family see the account of Charles Reginald Burdett.

The original town of Oakengates now forms part of Telford New Town. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was a thriving manufacturing centre based on local coal and ironstone industries. George Burditt managed a grocery business as would his son Harry in 1939, at which date George himself was sadly a patient in Berrington Mental Hospital in Shrewsbury; he died there in February 1947.

William Edward was fifteen when war broke out. He initially joined the Shropshire Light Infantry training reserve and went on active service at an unknown date. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal which shows he served overseas but his individual service record has not survived.

He married Florence Wilcox in 1926 and had six children, four born in the Shifnal district, and the younger two in Birmingham. At the time of his death in 1961 he was employed as a solicitor’s writer.  

For an account of the historic extended Aldwinckle family see John Bartholomew Aldwinckle. The following list gives the names of all known servicemen who were descended from Aldwinckles living Cottingham and Middleton in the nineteenth century.

(I also have information on a further five servicemen descended from the Aldwinckle family of Drayton in Leicestershire whose ancestors moved there from Cottingham in the eighteenth century. They are Ernest Aldwinckle, George Harry Aldwinckle, William Harold Aldwinckle, Herbert Aldwinckle and William James Aldwinckle. Please contact me <cottinghamsoldiers@gmail.com> if you would like to know more.)

Servicemen descended from Thomas Aldwinckle (1816-1899):
William Augustus Aldwinckle, Ralph Aldwinckle and Ernest Henry Aldwinckle.

Servicemen descended from Henry Aldwinckle (1770-1842):
John Bartholomew Aldwinckle, Charles Henry Aldwinckle, Arthur Edwin Aldwinckle, Frederick Wade Coles, Albert Edward Aldwinckle, Archibald Aldwinckle, Frank Aldwinckle, Harry Aldwinckle, William John Aldwinckle,  Harry Aldwinckle, George Robert Aldwinckle, Thomas Aldwinckle and Walter Aldwinckle.

Servicemen descended from William Aldwinckle (1807-1891):
Bartle Essex Aldwinckle, Charles Reginald Burdett, Alfred Norman Burdett and William Edward Burdett.

Servicemen descended from John Aldwinckle (1817-1884):
John Aldwinckle, Percy Aldwinckle, Henry Aldwinckle and Bernard Aldwinckle.