Profile

HOOPER, William Wallace
(Service number 5/244)

Aliases	Birth name registered as William Wallis Hooper; Death registered as William Wallace Hooper.
First Rank	Lance Corporal	Last Rank	Corporal

Birth

Date	29/07/1883	Place of Birth	Geraldine

Enlistment Information

Date	15 Aug 1914-31 Dec 1915	Age
Address at Enlistment	Brigade Supply, Buckle Street, Wellington
Occupation	Labourer
Previous Military Experience
Marital Status	Widower
Next of Kin	W.H. Hooper (father), Shaw Street, Temuka
Religion	CoE
Medical Information

Military Service

Served with	NZ Armed Forces	Served in	Army
Military District

Embarkation Information

Body on Embarkation	4th Reinforcements
Unit, Squadron, or Ship	New Zealand Army Service Corps
Date	17 April 1915
Transport	HMNZT 21 or HMNZT 22 or HMNZT 23 (Willochra or Knight Templar or Waitomo)
Embarked From		Destination

Other Units Served With
Last Unit Served With	New Zealand Army Service Corps

Military Awards

Campaigns	Egyptian, Egyptian Expeditionary Force, Western European (France & Belgium)
Service Medals	1914-15 Star, British War medal, Victory Medal
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	28 August 1918	Reason	No longer physically fit for war service on account of illness contracted on active service "chronic dyspepsia"

Hospitals, Wounds, Diseases and Illnesses

Post-war Occupations

Death

Date	26 September 1922	Age	39
Place of Death
Cause
Notices
Memorial or Cemetery
Memorial Reference
New Zealand Memorials	On Memorial wall, Timaru

Biographical Notes

Military service records note William's date of birth as "29/07/93 or 83?", but NZBDMs confirm William Wallis Hooper's birth ws registered on 29 July 1883 to Sarah Ann and William [senior] Hooper.

A granddaughter commented: "He already had two children when he enlisted. (William and Mary, known as Billy and Molly). His [William senior's] wife died of TB, so I was told. She was nursed by my Grandmother Ellen Mary Pearce, who also cared for Billy and Molly. When William Wallace Hooper was discharged from active duty on medical grounds he married Ellen Mary Hooper. They had three daughters, Marie Dorothy, Patricia Moira, [&] Margaret. He died aged 39. Ellen cared for Molly and Billy who died young. My mother ... told me about biking to the hospital (sanatorium) with food treats for them."

Grandson, Peter Reilly, also previously commented that William married Ellen Mary soon after his return from the war and they lived in Jackson Street, Timaru. The couple had a daughter, Patricia Moira, about 1921 - just a year before William died. Searching Births, Deaths, and Marriages online index resulted in the discovery of a marriage of William Hooper to Mary Ellen PEARCE in 1918, possibly indicating that her names were transposed in the official marriage record.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database (18 August 2015); SCROll web submission by B Hayes, 21 April 2026; Military Personnel file; Births, Deaths, & Marriages online at https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/ [Accessed 21 April 2026]; SCRoll web submission by P Prescott, 22 April 2026

External Links

Military personnel file

Researched and Written by

Ann Munro, SC branch NZSG; Tony Rippin, South Canterbury Museum; David Batchelor, South Canterbury Museum

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.

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

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