2nd Battalion, Welsh Regiment
William Joseph Hopkins was born at Charlton Kings in 1884, one of a family of nine children born to Joseph William Hopkins and his wife Fanny.
On 2 October 1903, at the age of 19, he joined the Army in Cardiff and was posted to the Welsh (or ‘Welch’) Regiment. Unfortunately no service record survives but he is likely to have joined the 1st Battalion and seen service in India. A typical term of engagement was seven years with the Colours and five in the Reserve. If he entered the Reserve in 1910, he would have been liable for immediate recall upon the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914. The 1911 Census records him as living in Napier Street in the Barton area of Gloucester and his occupation as a lamplighter in the service of the Gloucester Gas Company.
Joseph (as he appears to have been known) married Jane Nellie Townsend in 1908 and the couple had four children born between that year and 1913.
Having been recalled to the Colours, Joseph was posted to the 2nd Battalion of the Welsh Regiment and went with the battalion to France on 13 August 1914: the battalion becoming part of 3 Brigade, 1st Division. The 2nd Welsh took part in the Retreat from Mons and on 1 September 1914 were located at Villers-Cotterets. The tide had now turned for the Allies and it was the turn of the Germans to retreat across the River Marne and the River Aisne. On 14 September, on a foggy morning, 3 Brigade, including 2nd Welsh, was tasked with trying to establish a foothold on the Chemin des Dames, which overlooked the Aisne valley. It was a day of attack and counter attack and once the fog lifted the British artillery managed to suppress any German counter attacks and with great determination the 2nd Welsh managed to establish themselves on the Beaulne Ridge. The Official History of the Great War states that the 14 September 1914 was ‘the first day of ‘stabilisation’ of the battle line … the beginning, for the British of trench warfare’.
Private Joseph Hopkins was one of 24 Other Ranks of 2nd Welsh killed in action on that day. His body was never recovered and he is commemorated on La Ferte-sous-Jouarre Memorial to the Missing. His name is also present on the Gloucester War Memorial. His widow, left with four young children, re-married in 1918.