William Thomas Mullarkey
Private 43592 - 1st/5th Bn. Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment)
Killed in action on Thursday 3rd October 1918
No known grave but is remembered on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial, Pas- de-
Calais, France
William Thomas Mullarkey was born Wolverhampton on August 1891, the son of James
Mullarkey from Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, aged 32, and Jane nee Beddows from
Ellesmere Port, aged 28.
Her father was a canal boat captain, and husband James a Barge Boatman.
There were two other boys and three girls in the family. (The spelling of Mullarkey varies in
different records, e.g. Malarky, Mallarky.)
William was the nephew of Thomas William Hall, born in Gnosall in 1875, who had married
Jane Beddows’ sister Louisa at Gnosall in December 1897.
In 1899 William’s father James died of pneumonia in South Staffordshire Hospital. His
widow, Jane married again a few years later, and in 1911 William was living with the Halls
at Cowley and working as a farm labourer. His uncle (called William Thomas on the
census) was a herdsman, and had two daughters, Beatrice and Florence.
William Mullarkey enlisted in 1
st
/5
th
Battalion, Notts & Derby (Sherwood Foresters)
Regiment, as Private 43592. He was killed in action on 3
rd
October 1918, just over a month
before the end of the war, and was posthumously awarded the Victory & British medals.
He has no known grave but is remembered on Panel 7 of the Vis-en-Artois Memorial, Pas-
de-Calais.
Vis-en-Artois Memorial
Historical Information
This Memorial bears the names of over 9,000 men who fell in the period from 8 August
1918 to the date of the Armistice in the Advance to Victory in Picardy and Artois, between
the Somme and Loos, and who have no known grave. They belonged to the forces of
Great Britain and Ireland and South Africa; the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand
forces being commemorated on other memorials to the missing.
The Memorial consists of a screen wall in three parts. The middle part of the screen wall is
concave and carries stone panels on which names are carved. It is 26 feet high flanked by
pylons 70 feet high. The Stone of Remembrance stands exactly between the pylons and
behind it, in the middle of the screen, is a group in relief representing St George and the
Dragon. The flanking parts of the screen wall are also curved and carry stone panels
carved with names. Each of them forms the back of a roofed colonnade; and at the far end
of each is a small building.