Later known as the 'Old Lag VC', William Mariner was born in Chorley, Lancashire, on 29 May 1882, the son of Alice Mariner.
The family had settled in Lower Broughton, Salford, where he was working as a weaver before he enlisted into the King's Royal Rifle Corps of the British Army in 1900 and was posted to India. After a number of issues, William left the Army in 1912. He re-enlisted with the same unit in 1916 and was posted to France.
He was 32 years old, and a Rifleman in the 2nd Battalion, The King's Royal Rifle Corps during the first World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross.
The citation for the award, published in the London Gazette on 23 June 1915, read:
“During a violent thunderstorm on the night of 22 May, 1915, he left his trench near Cambrin, and crept out through the German wire entanglements till he reached the emplacement of a German machine gun which had been damaging our parapets and hindering our working parties. After climbing on the top of the German parapet he threw a bomb in under the roof of the gun emplacement and heard some groaning and the enemy running away.
After about a quarter of an hour, he heard some of them coming back again, and climbed up on the other side of the emplacement and threw another bomb among them left-handed. He then lay still while the Germans opened a heavy fire on the wire entanglement behind him, and it was only after about an hour that he was able to crawl back to his own trench. Before starting out, he had requested a Serjeant to open fire on the enemy's trenches as soon as he had thrown his bombs. Rifleman Mariner was out alone for one and a half hours carrying out this gallant act.”
He eventually returned to the front line after receiving his VC and being asked by Lord Kitchener to be an Army recruiter he was killed in action aged 34 on the evening of 30 June or the early morning of 1 July 1916 during a large scale raid in the Railway Triangle, south of Loos in France. As his body was never recovered, he was listed as missing and is mentioned on the Thiepval Memorial.