Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of William John Lewis a Church of England clergyman, born 1852 in Llanhamlack, Breconshire, Wales and his wife Mary Darnell Lewis (nee Shenton, married on the 21st September 1891 in the Parish Church, Husbands Bosworth, Leicestershire), born 1858 in Leicester. William Ewart Martin, was born on the 19th May 1898 in Mountsorrel, Leicestershire and baptised on the 29th May 1898 in St. Peter’s Church, Mountsorrel, his siblings were, Dorothy Mary Margaret, born 11th February 1894 and baptised on the 25th March 1894 in St. Peter’s Church, Mountsorrel, Patricia Helen, born 3rd July 1895 and baptised on the 25th July 1895 in St. Peter’s Church, Mountsorrel, John Theodore Mitchinson, born 17th December 1896 and baptised on the 7th January 1897 in St. Peter’s Church, Mountsorrel and Hilda Cecilia, born 22nd November 1899 and baptised on the 1st January 1900 in St. Peter’s Church, Mountsorrel, all his siblings were born in Mountsorrel, in March 1901 the family home was at St. Peter’s Vicarage, Mountsorrel. In April 1911 William was a schoolboy and was residing in the family home at St. Peter’s Vicarage, Mountsorrel, together with his father a Church of England clergyman, his mother and siblings, Dorothy, a schoolgirl, Patricia, a schoolgirl and Hilda, a schoolgirl. William was awarded the British War and Victory medals. His older brother John Theodore Mitchinson fell in action in August 1917.
On Friday April 19th 1918 The Melton Mowbray Times & Vale of Belvoir Gazette published the following article under the heading. – MOUNTSORREL. – VICAR’S SON KILLED. – Gunner and Signaller W. E. M. Lewis, aged 19, the son of Rev. W. J. Lewis, vicar of St. Peter’s, Mountsorrel, was killed by shell fire in France on Easter Eve, March 30th. The letter from the officer commanding his battery says, “although he had never been under fire before March 21st he showed a complete indifference to danger, which had he lived would have proved invaluable. All through the ten days of the battle he seemed to take everything as a matter of course and did his job in the most quiet and normal manner. I certainly believe that he would have earned some decoration had he lived, though I imagine that he would not have valued a decoration as much as a sense of having done his duty. He was killed quite instantaneously by a shell splinter in the head.” He was educated at Quorn Grammar School and then for four years at Worksop College, where he became Q.M. Sergeant of the O.T.C., and for the last term captain of the school and Chapel Sacristan. He left school in January, 1917, and entered R.H.A. Cadet School in London, and removed to Woolwich to continue his training as gunner and signaller and then to the base in France to go through the experience of active service before entering for his commission. Prior to joining the army arrangements had been made for him to go up to Oxford in preparation for ordination. His brother, Gunner J. T. M. Lewis, who had been second officer in the merchant marine and twice torpedoed, was killed in action on August 1st, 1917.