Home Life

Henry’s parents were both from southwest Wales: his father Henry Thomas was born in 1855 in Rosemarket, near Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, and his mother Jane (née Davies) came from Carmarthen,¹
born 1854. Jane spoke both Welsh and English but Henry Thomas only English.² They married in 1880 and settled for a short time in Cardiff.

Henry Thomas’s employment history is a good example of starting at the bottom and working your way up. It was also many a schoolboy’s dream. He was employed by the Great Western Railway Company where he had begunwork as an Engine Cleaner at the Goods Depot, Carmarthen on 5th January, 1871, just turned 15 years of age. He worked his way up through the GWR ranks, rising from Goods Fireman to 1st Class Fireman (1881), Engine Turner (1885), 3rd Class Engineman (1889), 2nd Class Engineman (1895) and finally, on 12th July 1900, 1st Class Engineman—the passport to driving express passenger trains.³

His GWR work made for a peripatetic existence. Although we do not have firm dates, we can trace the family’s peregrinations from employment, census and birth records. His duties took them from Cardiff (early 1880s) to Slough (mid-1880s), back to Cardiff (mid-1880s to late-1880s) then Bedminster, Bristol (turn of the century) and finally back to Canton, Cardiff, shortly after 1901.

Children were born to the newly-wedded couple: Margaret Mary in 1881 (Cardiff), Edith in 1885 (Slough), Alfred John in 1887 (Cardiff), Beatrice in 1889 (Cardiff) who died around her fifth brithday, and Henry Stanley in 1892 (Cardiff). The family’s census return in 1911 tells us that there was another child, deceased, but we do not know either the name or date of birth. Possibly she was in the five-year gap between Margaret and Edith and, if so, she must have died before the age of 9.

Margaret and Edith are both listed in 1901 having ‘Photography Apprentice’ as their occupation. Alfred had left school at the age of 14 and was a Post Office Telegraph Messenger. None of these early career choices became permanent: in 1911 we see that Margaret stayed at home (no occupation stated), Edith became a school teacher in Cardiff, Alfred completed an engineering apprenticeship as a marine engineer in Bristol, and Henry Stanley followed older sister Edith into the classroom.

Henry’s schooling would have been somewhat disrupted by the family moves. According to his later Student Record, Henry had attended Cardiff Council School. This must have been the very tail end of his primary education, after returning from Bristol.  The exact school name is not specified. The nearest Council School was Wood Street School, near Cardiff Arms Park, one mile away from the family home; they lived in a bay-windowed terraced house in Landsdowne Road, overlooking the GWR main line. He then moved up to ‘Cardiff Intermediary [sic] School’.  The latter was the forerunner to City of Cardiff High School for Boys, and was in Newport Road, Cardiff, four miles from home.

Henry’s education and entry into the teaching profession then becomes a puzzle. The usual path would have been to sit an entrance exam for training college (the ‘Preliminary Examination for the Certificate’), leave the secondary education at 18, and spend one year (maximum) as an unqualified assistant teacher, before proceeding to training college. It would appear that Henry did follow this pattern, but the chronology of his progress is unusual. We know that he passed his entrance exam in 1912 (exact date unknown), at the age of 19 or 20 rather than the expected 17 or 18. In the Census of April 1911 he is still listed as a Student⁴ at the age of 18—one year older than would be expected. Perhaps illness had intervened to prolong his education; we do not know.

Having decided to teach, Henry needed to undergo formal training in order to be a Certificated Teacher, and for this he chose to apply for a place in Winchester. There is a further missing year before he begins his course in 1913.

At War

On September 16th 1913, in his first days as a student at Winchester Training College, Henry enlisted in the College B’ Company of the Royal Hampshire Regiment Territorial Force.⁶ His Attestation Medical Report tells us that he was 5ft 7¾in tall, had good vision, fairly good physical development and a chest measurement of 35¾in.

When War was declared, the Hampshire Regiment Territorials were already in Khaki:

While many of his College friends would leave for India, Henry remained on home soil. It is possible that he had been transferred from the 4th Battalion to the newly-formed 2/6th Battalion—known as the Duke of Connaught’s. This unit was on home service and on 13th February 1915 became a Provisional Battalion and, just to make things more complicated, was also known as Hampshire Brigade Battalion, the 84th Provisional Battalion and, later, the 17th Battalion.

On an Army form dated 14th February 1916, we find that Henry is stationed at Blyth, Northumberland, with the 84th Reserve Battalion. The form is a request for a transfer to the Dorset Royal Garrison Artillery in Weymouth. There is no evidence to say that the transfer was completed, but on 16th May 1916 we find that he was transferred to the 2/8th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

We break away from Henry’s service history at this point because, during his time on home soil, the family received worrying news of his brother, Alfred, who had joined the merchant marine. His ship, the SS Trewyn, had set sail from Algiers on March 22nd, 1916, bound for Middlesbrough with a cargo of iron ore. Last seen passing Gibraltar on March 25th, she was reported overdue in early April and listed by Lloyds as officially missing on May 10th. A lifebelt marked ‘Trewyn—St Ives’ had been found off Ushant, Brittany, and the conclusion was drawn that she had been lost with all hands.⁸

Shortly after his arrival at his new unit, at 7pm on Monday 22nd May, 1916, Henry’s Battalion embarked on two paddle steaners, City of Benares and Princess Clementine, landing at Le Havre at 3am and disembarking at 7am. While all about him must have seemed so unfamiliar, there were at least three friendly and well-known faces 2/8th aboard among the 1021 men—all fellow students. Albert Lewis and Joseph Sharp were in his College year and Merton Rose the year above.

Henry had landed in France and the Western Front beckoned. Following training, the men eventually had their taste of the trenches at Le Quesnoy in Northern France, albeit for training and familiarisation. The Battalion War Diary of 8th June captures the mood:

Training continued until 20th June when the men were moved into trenches in the Neuve Chapelle section. While on duty in this area Henry was promoted to Lance Corporal on 18th July. This was a hectic time in the Fauquissart/Fromelles area with major engagements, often called the Battle of Fromelles or the Attack at Fromelles—part of the First Battle of the Somme. The Battalion continued fighting in this sector. On October 31st Henry was again promoted, this time to Corporal, then, on 19th February, 1917, we read in the Diary:

The following day he arrived back on English soil to attend one of the 21 Officer Cadet Units around the country. The training course lasted four and a half months and each unit had an establishment of 400 cadets at any time. He received his Commission as 2nd Lieutenant on 31st July, 1917.⁹

Here we come across a gap in the record and therefore in our knowledge of his whereabouts. His papers suggest that he was given his commission in 6th Battalion Warwickshires, yet when he died he was attached to the 11th Battalion. We do not know when the attachment took place or even if he spent any time in the 6th Battalion.

We pick up his story again in mid-October, 1917, by which time he would almost certainly have been with the 11th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment at Ypres, in the middle of the Battle of Passchendaele.

The 11th Battalion was a Service Battalion: providing combat service support to a brigade group and its elements. It also had to be able to fight in a defensive role and provide logistical support to sustain the operations of the other units.

We can follow the details of activities from a biography of 2nd Lieutenant Tristram William Jourdain Wilson (11th Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 1889–1917) who died with Henry.¹⁰ The sequence outlined is taken from the Battalion War Diary (NB Not verbatim):

Battalion War Diary for November 1917 including the report of Henry’s death

The Western Mail carried the following obituary of both Henry and Alfred, on Friday 7th December, 1917 (Portaits below, left to right are Henry and Alfred):