William Hickson and his brother Benjamin both died in the First World War. They were from Stretton, but their mother moved to Preston. William enlisted in the 1st/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry on 13 March 1916, and went out to France on 7 July. He was killed in the Battle of the Somme on 16 September 1916, when the 2nd Battalion advanced and captured the northern trench of a German strongpoint known as the Quadrilateral less than a hundred yards off the Ginchy-Morval road. William was buried on the battlefield but his body was never recovered after the war and so he has no known grave. He is remembered on Panel 14A of the Thiepval Memorial, along with more than 50 other men from Rutland. He is also remembered on the war memorial in Stretton.

See where all our Rutland soldiers died during the Battle of the Somme on our interactive map.