William Raws

RawsPrivate William Raws (b. 1891). We have included a memoir of William Raws, who had no Irish connections except that his recuperation, after injury, took place in a Dublin hospital. Raws, from Wallesly in the North-East of England, was a rifleman in the 1st and 6th Battalion, the Liverpool Rifles, which saw action in Ypres in April 1915. He joined up on 1 September 1914 and received training in Sefton Park, Sevenoaks in Kent and Canterbury. He went to France in February 1915, was injured in April and sent back to a temporary hospital in Dublin for treatment; his right foot had to be amputated in May 1915. He was eventually discharged in March 1916.  The hospital in which Raws recovered in Mountjoy Square was under the management of Commandant Mary Stuart, who was one of the earliest female graduates of Trinity College. A number of other female members of hospital staff were also graduates.

Nothing further is known of Raws and this memoir, purchased by the Library in 1999, is the only item of his in our collection.