William Burns Killed on the Somme — Worcestershire All-Rounder, July 1916

Burns was born in Bradford and qualified for Worcestershire by residence. His career figures — over 6,000 first-class runs and 367 wickets — would in any other generation have given him several Tests.

He enlisted in 1914 with the West Yorkshires, his home regiment, and was commissioned in 1915. By summer 1916 his battalion was attached to the 23rd Division on the Somme.

Burns was a Worcestershire professional who had taken 100 wickets in a season three times and, more unusually, was a powerful middle-order hitter — he scored 196 not out against Warwickshire in 1913. He was once chosen for an England trial but was never capped. When war came he enlisted in the West Yorkshire Regiment and was commissioned. On 7 July 1916, attached to the 13th Battalion, he was killed leading his platoon in the attack on Contalmaison village in the early stages of the Somme offensive. His body was buried in the field but the marker was lost; he is now commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial.

“A heavy hitter and a willing bowler — the perfect county professional.”

His Thiepval Memorial inscription is one of more than 70,000 names of British soldiers with no known grave from the Somme campaign. Worcestershire CCC included him on their war memorial at New Road.