| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Tom Bradley, a member of the Beverley Church Lads’ Brigade since 1910, enlisted on the 4 Dec 1914. He joined “C” Company of the 16th Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifles otherwise known as the Church Lads’ Battalion. It was drawn from CLB members throughout the UK. The 16th arrived in France on 16 Nov 1915 and were initially held in reserve but went into action on the Somme on 15 Jul 1916 at High Wood. They were later at Arras and Passchendaele. Thomas joined as a rifleman but by late Apr 1917 had been promoted many times and had reached the rank of sergeant. After home leave in the UK in Jan 1918, Tom was involved in the Battle of the Lys in Apr 1918. On 13 Apr 1918 Tom was posted as having been killed and in the Beverley Guardian of 11 May 1918 a letter of condolence from his Battalion chaplain to his parents was published.
In fact Tom had been taken prisoner on this day in the vicinity of Neuve Eglise and was taken to Germany. Tom spent time in the Limburg and Duhlen camps and latterly at the Cottbus camp. On 1 Jun 1918 his parents received a handwritten letter from him dated 20 Apr, it said he was in Germany and unhurt. He arrived back in the UK after the end of the war in early Jan 1919. He was awarded the War and Victory Medals and the 1914-15 Star.
Tom was born in Beverley, 18 May 1896 and baptised at St Mary’s, 17 June. His father, Charles Philip Bradley was a house painter, originally from Liverpool. and his mother was Mary (nee. Jones). Tom was one of four children. The family home was in Empson Terrace, Grayburn Lane. Before war service Tom worked as a grocer at the Beverley branch of the Maypole Dairy, 22 Toll Gavel.
After the war Tom returned to the grocery trade and is recorded in the 1939 Register as being a shop manager in Hull. In late 1920 Tom married Florence Williamson, a domestic servant, born in Beverley 1893 and the daughter of a groom from Riding Fields. The family home was in Goddard Avenue, Hull. Tom died on 21 Aug 1953
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |