Pte 59287 Thomas Baker

• Age: 23
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Wednesday 1st August 1917
• Commemorated at: Railway Dugout B.g. Zillebeke
  Panel Ref: VIII.A.8

Thomas Baker was born in the first quarter of 1894 in Liverpool and was the son of John Still Baker and his wife Martha (nee Ward). His parents married in St Mary's Church, Walton in 1888. Thomas was baptised, also at St Mary's Church on 15th March 1894.

The 1901 Census the family are at 7 Roden St, Everton. Thomas is 7 years of age and lives with his parents and two siblings. His father John S. is a 33 year old quay corn carter, born in Liverpool, whilst his mother Martha is 32 years of age and was also born in Liverpool. Thomas' siblings are shown as; John S.  aged 12,  and Ada aged 9, both born Liverpool.

The 1911 Census shows the family living at 17 Conyers Street, Kirkdale, Liverpool.  His father John is aged 43, and is now a horse-keeper, whilst his mother, Martha is aged 42, born 1869 with no occupation listed. They have been married for 23 years and have had five children of which two died. Those children listed on the Census are; John aged 22, born 1889 and Thomas aged 17, born 1894 are both employed as general carters, and Ada aged 19, born 1892 is a cigar maker. 

Thomas enlisted in Liverpool and was serving in the 17th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 59287 when he was killed in action on the 01st August 1917, aged 23, during the Third Battle of Ypres. 

He now rests at Railway Dugout Burial Ground, Zillebeke, Belgium, where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“INTO THE SUNSHINE OF GOD'S PERFECT DAY”

The commune of Zillebeke contains many Commonwealth cemeteries as the front line trenches ran through it during the greater part of the First World War.

Railway Dugouts Cemetery is 2 Kms west of Zillebeke village, where the railway runs on an embankment overlooking a small farmstead, which was known to the troops as Transport Farm. The site of the cemetery was screened by slightly rising ground to the east, and burials began there in April 1915. They continued until the Armistice, especially in 1916 and 1917, when Advanced Dressing Stations were placed in the dugouts and the farm. They were made in small groups, without any definite arrangement and in the summer of 1917 a considerable number were obliterated by shell fire before they could be marked. The names "Railway Dugouts" and "Transport Farm" were both used for the cemetery.

At the time of the Armistice, more than 1,700 graves in the cemetery were known and marked. Other graves were then brought in from the battlefields and small cemeteries in the vicinity, and a number of the known graves destroyed by artillery fire were specially commemorated. The latter were mainly in the present Plots IV and VII.

The cemetery now contains 2,459 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 430 of the burials are unidentified and 261 casualties are represented by special memorials. Other special memorials record the names of 72 casualties buried in Valley Cottages and Transport Farm Annexe Cemeteries whose graves were destroyed in later fighting.

VALLEY COTTAGES CEMETERY, ZILLEBEKE, was among a group of cottages on "Observatory Road", which runs Eastward from Zillebeke village. It contained the graves of 111 soldiers from the United Kingdom and Canada. It was in an exposed position during the greater part of the war.

TRANSPORT FARM ANNEXE was about 100 metres South-East of the Railway Dugouts Cemetery, on the road to Verbrandenmolen. The graves in it were removed to Perth Cemetery (China Wall), Zillebeke, but one officer, whose grave could not found, is specially commemorated here.

The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Soldiers Effects and Pension to father John Still Baker, and mother Martha. 

Thomas is also commemorated on St Lawrence’s C. of E. Church, Kirkdale.

His mother died in the March quarter of 1938 aged 68.

His father died in the March quarter of 1942 aged 73.  

We currently have no further information on Thomas Baker, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.