Profile

GILLON, William
(Service number 62966)

Aliases
First Rank Private Last Rank

Birth

Date 24/03/1882 Place of Birth Dunlop, Ayrshire, Scotland

Enlistment Information

Date Age
Address at Enlistment Central Hotel, Ashburton
Occupation Ploughman
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status Single
Next of Kin Robert GILLON (brother), Pot-office, Waimate
Religion Presbyterian
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with NZ Armed Forces Served in Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation
Unit, Squadron, or Ship
Date 21 November 1917
Transport Maunganui 
Embarked From Wellington Destination Liverpool, Merseyside, England
Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With Otago Infantry

Military Awards

Campaigns
Service Medals
Military Awards

Award Circumstances and Date

No information

Prisoner of War Information

Date of Capture
Where Captured and by Whom
Actions Prior to Capture
PoW Serial Number
PoW Camps
Days Interned
Liberation Date

Discharge

Date Reason

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Ploughman; labourer

Death

Date 8 June 1960 Age 78 years
Place of Death Christchurch
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials

Biographical Notes

William Gillon was born on 24 March 1882 in Scotland, at Dunlop, Ayrshire, the son of John and Jennett (Janet) Gillon. William was a scholar at home with parents, John Gillon and Janet née Hamilton, at Woodside Cottage, Kippen, Stirlingshire in 1891. There too were brothers Robert and James. By 1901 William was a servant ploughman at Brael Farm, Dunipace, Stirlingshire. William had come to New Zealand about 1907 and worked as a ploughman. On enlisting with the New Zealand Forces, he named his brother Robert Gillon, Post-office, Waimate, as next-of-kin. He embarked per the “Maunganui”, departing from Wellington on 21 November 1917 for Liverpool, England.

He embarked per the “Tahiti” at Liverpool on 3 December 1918 for the return to New Zealand, where he was one of about eighteen Waimate men expected mid-January 1919. William married Mary Bennett in 1922. He died on 8 June 1960 at Christchurch. His brother James also served with the New Zealand forces, also naming Robert as next-of-kin. Robert was listed on the Reserve Roll, a married man with two children.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [04 September 2021]; Waimate Daily Advertiser, 7 January 1919 (Papers Past) [04 October 2020]; NZ Electoral Roll (ancestry.com.au) [04 September 2021]; 1891 & 1901 Scotland Census returns (ancestry.com.au) [May 2018; 3 September 2021]

External Links

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC branch NZSG

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Logo. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License unless otherwise stated.

Tell us more

Do you have information that could be added to this story? Or related images that you are happy to share? Submit them here!

Your Details
Veteran Details
- you may attach an image or document up to 10MB