| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Tom Anderson was born in Beverley on 30 Sep 1889, the youngest child of George and Mary Anderson. They married in 1870 and lived in Walkington, later moving to 32 Cherry Tree Lane, Beverley. At the time of the Great War they returned to the village to live at Woodhouse Cottage. Tom had six siblingsl; his older brother, George was a tanners’ labourer like his father, whilst Robert and Albert worked at the Beverley shipyard. The 1911 census records him as working for the GPO as an “auxiliary rural postman” in Beverley but little is known about his life before the war.
Tom enlisted on 8 Dec 1915 joining the 8th (City of London) Battalion, the London Regiment, also known as the Post Office Rifles. He served as a Rifleman arriving at the front in early 1917. The Post Office Rifles took part in the assault on Messines Ridge in Jun 1917 and were involved in the 3rd Battle of Ypres in Aug and Sep 1917. They then moved to a quieter sector near Arras in France. According to the Battalion war diary whilst at Maroeuil on the afternoon on 12 Nov over 100 German shells were fired at them. The Beverley Guardian of 24 Nov 1917 notes that Tom was badly wounded in the face, the right knee and the left thigh, injuries consistent with a shell blast. He was moved to the 22nd General Hospital and then repatriated to the UK. He was discharged from the army on the 16 May 1918 and awarded the Silver Badge, which was given to those men unfit for further service, He was awarded the War and Victory Medals.
Tom married Isabella Robinson Wilkinson in Berwick in the summer of 1916. Isabella came from a Durham mining family, one of eleven children. After Tom’s discharge from the army the couple settled in Stockton on Tees where Tom worked as a sorter at the GPO. They had three children-Marjorie K I in Aug 1920, Violet M in Aug 1927 and Rita in 1937. Tom died in the Cleveland area in 1963, Isabella in 1967. It is not known whether he had any further connection with this area but in the 1939 register his brother George and sisters, Mary and Edith were living at Woodbine House, Walkington
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |