Notes
The Roll lists his address as 143 Gladstone Street; it also records the death of his brother Harry. The Roll wrongly states that William was killed in action on 29/4/1915; his death certificate states that he died of wounds on 19/5/1915.
(CWGC's online database records that Private W.O. Waterfield, regimental number SR/7165, died aged 26 on 19/5/1915 serving in the 2nd Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment, and is buried in grave II.H.27 at Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery in France. They record him as the son of the late H.O. Waterfield. [The Commission's original Graves Registration forms had incorrectly recorded that Private Waterfield died on 28/4/1915].
Soldiers Died in the Great War stated that William Oswald Waterfield served in the Northamptonshire Regiment under regimental number 16031 before joining the East Surrey Regiment, and that he died on 19/5/1915. The Medal Rolls made no mention of any service in the Northamptonshire Regiment; they record that he went to France with the East Surrey Regiment on 24/3/1915, and that he died of wounds on 19/5/1915. The Army Registers of Soldiers' Effects, incorrectly recorded that William died on 29/4/1915; his mother Elizabeth was his legatee.
William Oswald Waterfield's birth had been registered in Peterborough District in 1889. On the 1891 and 1901 census he had been living with his parents Elizabeth and Harry Oswald Waterfield at 198 Gladstone Street, Peterborough. On the 1911 census he was working as a porter for Midland Railway Company, lodging at South Wingfield, Alfreton in Derbyshire; his place of birth was wrongly given as Stamford.
William is commemorated on his mother's headstone in Broadway Cemetery- see WMR ref 70107; that inscription states that he died on an unspecified date in 1915).