| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Thomas Spencer Rounding was born in Tickton the 28 Jan 1896 and baptised at St Paul’s Church the 15 Mar 1896, the son of Thomas Spencer and Maria who moved to the village in the early 1890s from the Gainsborough area of Lincolnshire. Thomas senior was a gardener and Thomas junior was to follow in this occupation. Thomas was one of four children. They moved to Beverley and were living at Pasture Terrace in 1901 and at Westwood House Lodge before the war, later moving to Empson Terrace in Grayburn Lane.
Thomas enlisted in Beverley on 1 Dec 1914 in the “Beverley Terriers”, the 5th Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, also known as the Green Howards. In 1917 he was transferred to the 1st/4th Battalion. Both were in 150th Brigade and part of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division. He left the army in Mar 1919 with the rank of Acting Corporal.
Thomas arrived in France on 18 Apr 1915 and was immediately in action in the 2nd Battle of Ypres in Belgium. He contracted scarlet fever and was hospitalised twice before being sent back to the UK from where he returned to service in Belgium in Oct 1915. In Apr 1916 he contracted scabies and was again hospitalised. On his return to service the 50th Division transferred to the Somme and Thomas was involved in the actions at Flers-Courcelette, Le Transloy and Warlencourt. On 17 Jan 1917 -and not as was reported in the Beverley Guardian of 27 Jan 1917, the 11th -Thomas received serious gunshot wounds to the left shoulder which once again led him to be hospitalised in Glasgow and then Tunbridge Wells. He returned to service with the 1st/4th on 9 Apr 1917 and took part in many actions in the Battle of Arras. In late Mar 1918, again on the Somme, he was again wounded: a gunshot wound to his left arm resulted in further hospitalisation in the UK and upon recovery he served in the Reserve Battalion at Hornsea until the end of hostilities.
Thomas was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and Victory Medals.
Thomas resumed his gardening job after the war, living at The Lodge, Pasture Terrace. On 14 Feb 1920 the married Mary Green of Leeds at St Mary’s Church, they had one child Margaret born 1937. The 1939 Register notes they were living at 96 Holme Church Lane, Beverley and that Thomas worked as a “dock chargeman” at the LNER mill at Beverley goods yard. Thomas died in 1975, Mary died in 1971.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |