Pte 34528 Thomas Hackett

• Age: 25
• From: Bristol
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 28th March 1918
• Commemorated at: Pozieres Memorial
  Panel Ref: P21-23

Thomas Hackett was born in Bristol on the 19th April 1892, and baptised at the Catholic Church of St Mary on the Quay, Bristol on the 28th April 1892. He was the son of Thomas Hackett and Bridget Flanagan. Thomas and Bridget were both born in Ireland, Thomas in Waterford and Bridget in Mayo. The couple were married in November 1880 in Ireland.

The year before, the census of 1891 showed the couple lived at 9 White’s Cottages, which was in a closely packed area of poor housing leading onto the Quay in Bristol. They were boarders in the household of a widow and her son. Thomas senior was a masons labourer and was aged 34, his wife Bridget was 30. They had three children – James aged 7 who had been born in Ireland, Kate (who was baptised Mary Catherine) aged 3 born in Ireland and one year old Norah who had been born in Bristol. Sadly Norah died later that year. The couple had another son called Patrick in 1895.

Thomas, his parents, his sister Mary and his brother Patrick are all found at the time of the 1901 census in the Bristol Workhouse in Eastville, Bristol. His father is recorded as a dock labourer and his mother as a school teacher. His older brother James, who is described as a newspaper hawker, is an inmate of Horfield Prison in Bristol.

Thomas’s mother died in 1902 at the age of 41, and his father in 1907 at the age of 51.

At the time of the 1911 census Thomas is working as a kitchen boy in the Victoria Hotel in Weston Super Mare. His brother Patrick is 16 and resident, along with 12 other young teenage boys, at 20 Pritchard Street in Bristol with live in couple who are described as Caretakers of Service Boys Home. The boys are all employed in the wood trades: Cabinet and chairmaking and upholstering. Patrick is a chair maker.

Thomas was serving in the 17th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 34528 when he was killed in action at the age of 25 on the 28th March, 1918, during the German Spring Offensive.

The Battalion diary gives an insight into the events of the day:

28th March 1918

FOLIES – MEZIERES – ROUVREL

10.00am Enemy attacked our immediate front but was driven off – Half an hour later enemy was seen in large numbers through ROUVROY to WARVILLERS. About 11 am orders were received that the Battalion would be relieved by 133rd French Division. The relief was carried out shortly after noon, after a message had been received by telephone that the French were satisfied with the position and that we were to withdraw at once.

4pm The enemy were then in BEAUFORT. The Battalion assembled at MEZIERES and marched to ROUVREL to billets arriving about 6.30pm.

Thomas has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.

A War gratuity was granted to his sister Mary C. O'Connell and his brothers James and Patrick Hackett. Mary had married James O’Connell in January 1919 at Clifton Cathedral Church of the Holy Apostles.

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