Pocket watch case containing a photograph of Private William Henry Ellen, 1st Battalion, The Auckland Regiment, 1916 (c)

In 1912, aged 18, William Ellen left London bound for Wellington, recording his occupation as a farmer. Four years later he embarked with the New Zealand Rifle Brigade on 27 May 1916 destined for England. Private Ellen was killed serving with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on the Somme on 27 September 1916. He is commemorated on the memorial to the missing at Caterpillar Valley in France.