Name
Thomas Fitzjohn
13 Nov 1894
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
13/11/1914
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
9955
Bedfordshire Regiment
1st Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 (Mons) Star (with Clasp & Roses), British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LE TOURET MEMORIAL
Panel 10 and 11.
France
Headstone Inscription
No Headstone he is Commemorated on the Le Touret Memorial to the Missing.
UK & Other Memorials
St Mary's Church Memorial, Kings Walden, Not on the Frogmore (St Albans) memorials, Not aware of any Frogmore (Kings Walden) Memorials
Pre War
Thomas Fitzjohn was born on 13 Nov 1894 (baptised 9 Dec 1894, Parish Church of King’s Walden) in Frogmore End, King’s Walden, Hertfordshire the son of Daniel Fitzjohn (born 1854 in White Hall, Kings Walden, Herts and Ruth Anne (nee Stapleton) (born 1858 in Stondon, Beds).
The 1901 Census records Thomas aged 6, at school, living with his parents, sisters Lizzie (born 1891, May (born 1893), Liley (born 1897) and Anne (born 1900) in Frogmore End, Kings Walden, Herts.
Thomas attended Kings Walden National School from September 1899 to May 1907.
Thomas’s father Daniel died in the early part of 1911.
1911 Census records Thomas aged 16, working as a general farm labourer, living with his widowed mother Ruth, sister Anne (at school) and brother William (born 1902) at Frogmore Bottom, Kings Walden, Herts.
Thomas enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment. His service record was not found but he is recorded as Pte 9955 which would have been issued in Mar 1912 (9994 was issued on 6 Apr 1912).
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of war Thomas was a serving Private with the 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment at Mullingar, Ireland.
His Medal Card indicates that he landed in France on 16th August 1914 with 1st Battalion, and they proceeded to join the British Expeditionary Force on at Mons on 23 Aug 1914, retreated toward Le Cateau (26 Aug 1914), the Marne (6 Sep 1914), driving the Germans back at Aisne (13 Sept 1914, taking part in the fighting at Le Bassee (date) until on 6 Nov 1914 the Battalion moved in to trenches near Hooge on the Mrnin Road Ypres. On 7 Nov 1914 13 the enemy broke into the trenches nearby and the bedfordshires counter-attacked clearing the trenches of enemy but sustaining casualties of 7 Officers and 140 Other Ranks. On 13 Nov 1914 the war diary reports that 5 men were casualties of enemy rifle fire. Thomas was reported killed in action on Friday 13 Nov 1914, (His 20th Birthday), he has no known grave and is commemorated on the CWGC Le Touret Memorial in France
Additional Information
War Gratuity of £5 and arrears of £9-1s-4d, was shared equally between his mother and younger brother Percy.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne, Neil Cooper
Jonty Wild, Stuart Osborne
