William Bury was a boilermaker in Toowoomba who enlisted in mid-1915. He reached France with the 25th Battalion in June 1916, and arrived at the front in August, only to be wounded at Pozieres less than a month later. Bury was evacuated to England but died of a pulmonary embolism several days after an operation on his leg. He was buried in Bolton (Tonge) Cemetery in Lancashire. He was 33 when he died, leaving behind his wife Teresa.
Soon after Bury’s death, the Railway and Works Sick and Burial Society of Ipswich wrote to the Records Office in Melbourne asking for confirmation of the death so they could pay out a death allowance to Teresa. Bury’s name appeared on the Toowoomba Railway Worker’s honour board in April 1918, and a month later was added to the honour board of the Toowoomba British Football Association. Bury’s footballing history is obscured.
It appears he was the inaugural secretary of the newly formed Ipswich and West Moreton British Football Referees’ Association in 1913, having arrived in Australia around 1911 from England.
While he was not mentioned in Toowoomba newspapers in regards to football before the war, his name was mentioned at a dinner of the local Referees Association in 1919 when listing those who had fallen.