Name
Harold Edward Toms
1892
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/09/1916
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
3212
London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers)
1st (City of London) Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Pier and Face 9 D and 16 B.
France
Headstone Inscription
He has no Headstone. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing in France.
UK & Other Memorials
Kings Langley Village Memorial.
All Saints Church Memorial, Kings Langley.
British Army, Railwaymen Died in The Great War.
Pre War
Harold Edward Toms was born in 1892, in Kings
Langley, Herts, son of Edward Toms a schoolmaster and Helen Toms (nee
Starling), one of six children, Hilda (B 1891), Beryl (B 1896), Helen/Muriel (B
1898), Enid (B 1900) and Phyllis (B 1906).
Harold was Baptised on 22 May 1892, in the Parish
Church, Kings Langley.
1901 Census records Harold aged 8, living with
his parents, and 4 siblings at, Essex Cottage, Village Street West Side, Kings
Langley.
By
1911 Harold had left school and was working at Euston Station for the London
& North Western Railway Company, as a Clerk, living with his parents, and 4
siblings in, Church Lane, Kings Langley
Wartime Service
Harold traveled to Handel Street, London to
enlist, posted to the 1st (City of London) Battalion (Royal Fusiliers) with the
service number 3212. Seeing action on the Western Front. He was killed by a
shell landing near him on 15 September 1916. He has no known grave and is
commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme, France.
His Obituary in the London and North Western
Railway Gazette Volume 6, April 1917, Page 108, it states that a letter was received
by Harold’s father from his Corporal, that he had died. A shell had dropped at
his feet, shattering the lower part of one leg. When found later in a shell
hole he was conscious, but near death. After refusing to be moved, he passed away.
Additional Information
The value of his effects was £3-8s-8d, Pay Owing and £8-10s-0d, War Gratuity, which went to his father Edward Toms.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Jonty Wild
