838246 Pte. Stanley Showell Bryans was born on February 6th, 1892, in Grey County, Ontario. Living near Chatsworth, Stanley was working as a beekeeper when hostilities broke out.
With the raising of the 147th (Grey) Battalion, Stanley joined the cause, attesting to it in Owen Sound on January 3rd, 1916.
Billeted locally over the winter, the 147th Battalion mobilized in Owen Sound in the spring of 1916 and left for training at Camp Niagara. As the conditions in the Camp were wanting, the unit moved to the new training facility of Camp Borden in late June. In September the unit received their orders to proceed overseas, but due to an outbreak of diphtheria they were detained in Amherst, Nova Scotia, for over a month. The unit finally sailed for Great Britain on November 14th, 1916, on the S.S. Olympic, a sister ship to the Titanic.
On January 1st, 1917, the 147th Battalion ceased to exist when it became the nucleus for the 8th Reserve Battalion, whose task it was to supply reinforcements to the 58th Battalion and the 4th C.M.R. Stanley was taken on strength of the 4th C.M.R. on April 22nd, 1917, in a draft of reinforcements to replace the casualties taken at Vimy Ridge.
Serving with the unit through the summer, Stanley transferred to the Brigade Trench Mortar Battery on October 1st, 1917.
Private Stanley Showell Bryans returned to the 4th C.M.R. after the armistice and was struck off strength of the unit on April 1st, 1919.
Biography details credit: George Auer