Source: Operation Picture Me via The 18th Battalion Facebook Group. London Free Press Circa 1916.
Family Search: When William Frederick Routly was born on 21 January 1896, in Paddington, London, England, United Kingdom, his father, William Henry Routly, was 43 and his mother, Fanny Jane Chapman, was 35. He married Florence Billington on 21 December 1919, in London, Ontario, Canada West, British Colonial America. They were the parents of at least 3 daughters. He lived in Islington, London, England, United Kingdom in 1901. He died on 8 August 1974, in London, Ontario, Canada West, British Colonial America, at the age of 78, and was buried in Saint Anne’s Anglican Church Cemetery, London, Ontario, Canada.
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Spearman and Routly family about 1950.
ROUTLY, William F.
William was born in London, England on January 21, 1896. He came to Canada as a boy and enlisted in the Army with Jim Billington and J. Hawkins. He served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in Canada, England and France during World War I. Jim was killed in France and William (Bill) was wounded by shrapnel in the foot on July 19, 1916. Because he carried on to the objective rather than go to the aid station the wound became infected and, back in England, after gangrene set in, half his leg was amputated below the knee. He returned to Toronto to learn to walk at Sunnybrook Hospital. He was very young and wanted to walk without a limp. Bill learned to drive, married Jim’s sister Florence and worked for Ford in Windsor. As 1929 approached, he bought an egg farm in Byron, near London, Ontario. Bill and Flo had three daughters. Two of his sons-in-law served in World War II. He was known as Pop to his grandchildren and the community. Bill passed away on August 8, 1974 and is greatly missed.
History of the 18th Battalion CEF, "The Fighting Eighteenth" 