Harold Sandys Williamson was born in Leeds on 29 August 1892. He studied at the Leeds School of Art between 1911 and 1914. The following year he attended the Royal Academy Schools in London, 1914-15 and was awarded the Turner Gold Medal.

Following the outbreak of war, he attempted to enlist in the army, but was turned down on health grounds. He was finally accepted into the King's Royal Rifle Corps in January 1916 as a rifleman, and began his training at Winchester the following day. A week later he was posted to the 15th (Reserve) Battalion at South Down Camp, Sussex, where he stayed until he was sent to France at the beginning of August as part of the draft for the 8th Battalion (41st Brigade, 14th Division). By now a Lance Corporal, and hoping for a commission, he joined the battalion at Heucourt on the Somme in late August 1916. On the morning of 15 September he was wounded by a grenade fragment while taking part in an attack during the Battle of Delville Wood.

"At 6.20, then, on a misty morning, we were crouching in a 3 or 4 foot trench, bayonet fixed, & rifle loaded, a bomb in each pocket, empty sandbags hung on me, also one full of food! ...I got out of the trench, & walked forward, calling to the men near me who were a bit slow. A big bombardment was on. The ground rolled away, absolutely bare & brown - you could see not a stump nor a line of a parapet, only the general irregularity of the ground caused by the shell holes, which must have overlapped each other over areas of square miles..."

Detail from 'A German Attack
on a Wet Morning, April 1918'