Irish Guards Daily Mail War Correspondent

Valentine Wiliams (1882 - 1946) was the son of G Edward Williams, Chief Editor of the Reuters News Agency. After being privately educated in Germany, he joined Reuters as a sub editor in 1902.

In 1909, Williams became a reporter for the Daily Mail (then the most popular British newspaper and the first to achieve a daily circulation of one million copies). In this capacity, he reported on international events such as the Portuguese Revolution of 1910 and the Balkan Wars of 1912 - 1913.

During the early stages of the First World War, reporters were not permitted direct access to the Western Front. Williams therefore obtained a commission with the Irish Guards in December 1915.

He saw action during the Battle of the Somme, where he was seriously wounded in 1916, and was awarded the Military Cross. Williams then joined the small group of accredited war correspondents based at British General Headquarters and continued to serve as the accredited correspondent for the Daily Mail until the end of the war.

After the war, Valentine Williams was in charge of reporting the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 for the Daily Mail. In addition to journalism, Williams also became a popular writer of mystery fiction, publishing a series of 28 books from 1918 until his death in 1946.

Faces of the First World War

Find out more about this First World War Centenary project at www.1914.org/faces.