Name
Thomas Rupert Payne
1899
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
06/08/1918
19
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
19530
Bedfordshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
HEATH CEMETERY, HARBONNIERES
VI. D. 2
France
Headstone Inscription
He has no family inscription on his Headstone.
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour (Book), Hitchin, St Ippolyts Village Memorial
Pre War
Thomas Rupert Payne was born in 1899, in St Ippolyts, Herts. The son of William Payne and Eliza Ann Payne (nee Gregory). One of 5 children.
1901 Census records Thomas as Hubert aged aged 1, living with his parents, sisters Constance (8) and Madeline (5) in, St Ippolyts, Herts.
1911 Census records Thomas aged 12, at school, living with his widowed father and elder sister Madeline (15), in St Ippolyts, Nr Hitchin, Herts.
Wartime Service
Thomas enlisted at Bedford; he was posted to the 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, with the service number 19530.
Thomas was Killed in Action on the 6th August 1918; he is buried in Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, Somme, France. At the time of his death his Battalion was part of the 54th Brigade, 18th Division. On that day the Germans commenced an assault on a 2-mile front with heavy infantry and artillery attacks and penetrated our line to a depth of 1,000 yards astride the Bray to Corbie Road, South West of Molancourt on the Somme.
He was buried in Plot 6, Row D, Grave 2 in Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, France.
Additional Information
His father William Payne was awarded a Dependents Pension of 5/- a week from 18 March 1919. The pension record gives his father's address as Nightingale Road, Hitchin, Herts.
Acknowledgments
Stuart Osborne
Adrian Dunne, Stuart Osborne, Jonty Wild, David C Baines
