Pte 40418 Thomas Henry Hamlin

Thomas Henry was born on 19th December 1884, the son of Thomas Alfred Hamlin and his wife Sarah (née Dowd). He was baptised in St. Peter’s Church, Liverpool, on 1st January 1885, his parents’ residence given as Everton, and father’s occupation listed as porter.

 

His parents married in 1883 when his father was 20 and his mother 18 (stated ages).  Thomas had a younger sister Sarah, born in 1887.  Twins Alice and Mary Ann were born in 1889 but sadly both died in infancy.

 

In 1891 Thomas, with his father and sister Sarah, are living at 30 Beresford Road, Everton, with his paternal grandmother Mary Hamlin and uncles and aunts. His father is 26, a cotton sample man.  Thomas is 6, Sarah is 4.  His mother is not in the household.  A Sarah Hamlin, 24, married, birthplace unknown, is a patient in Rainhill Asylum.

 

In 1901 they are at 3 Pine Grove, Edge Hill.  His father 35, a cotton sample agent, is married, but his mother is not in the household. Thomas is 16, a cotton sample boy at the port.  Robert, 2, and William, 1, are listed as sons.  Birth records show their mother’s maiden name as Jones.  They have a boarder, Margaret Jones, 22, single, a domestic nurse.  (A Sarah Hamlin, 33, married, newspaper hawker, is an inmate in the Liverpool workhouse, Mount Pleasant in 1901.  She died in the workhouse in January 1905.) His father married Margaret Jones in August 1905. 

 

Thomas married Beatrice Mary Lennon in St. Peter’s Church, Liverpool, on 23rd October 1909, giving his age as 24, his occupation as porter, and his residence as Arrad Street.  Their son Thomas was born on 15th February 1910.

 

The 1911 census finds them at 101 Ritson Street, Toxteth Park.  Thomas is 26, a cotton porter, Beatrice is 24, and son Thomas is one year old.  His father 48, a cotton sample man, is living at 2 Warburton Street, with second wife Margaret, Robert 12, Elizabeth 9, and John, 7.  Two of their five children have died.

 

A second child, Francis was born to Thomas and Beatrice in 1912, but sadly died at one month old, and was buried in Walton Park cemetery.  A daughter Beatrice was born on 9th March 1914.

He enlisted in Liverpool joining the 18th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 17192. At some point Thomas was transferred to the 1/5th, then to the 2/7th Lancashire Fusiliers as Private 40418. There is sadly no mention of his King's Liverpool Regiment service on his medal roll.  

 

The 5th and 7th Bns of the Lancashire Fusiliers both saw action at Gallipoli.  Both Battalions made a successful withdrawal from the Helles bridgehead and on the 28th December 1915, landed on Mudros and returned to Egypt.  On 27th February 1917 they landed at Marseilles and moved to the Western Front. They were re-equipped for trench warfare and entered the line at Epehy, southwest of Cambrai.  In September 1917 they moved north to the Ypres Salient and were in action at the Battle of Passechendaele.

 

Thomas’ name, Pte. 40418, appeared in the list of Wounded in the Weekly Casualty List on 9th October 1917.  He evidently recovered from his wounds and returned to the front. 

 

He was killed in action on 10/01/1918 aged 33. His body was not recovered from the battlefield and his name is on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after August 16th 1917 are named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F.V. Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett on 20 June 1927.

The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

 

Thomas’ children were 7 and 3 years old when he died.  His widow Beatrice at 101 Ritson Street, Lodge Lane, received Thomas’ Army effects, and a War Gratuity of £15-10s, as well as a pension of £1-5s-5d a week for herself and children. 

 

His father died in 1932.

Beatrice never remarried.  In 1939 she is 52, living at 13 Sunningdale Road  with daughter Beatrice, 25, a surgical leather worker (splints).  She married in 1941; it is not know when she died.  His son Thomas married, remained in Liverpool, and died at the age of 70 in 1980.  His widow Beatrice died in January 1942, aged 54 (“Suddenly in Hospital, the widow of Thomas Henry Hamlin”).   

Thomas is commemorated on  the following Memorials:

The Liverpool Cotton Association, Walker House, Exchange Flags, Liverpool 

Liverpool’s Hall of Remembrance, Panel 55 Right.