Name
Thomas Henry Stevens
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
4033
East Surrey Regiment
11th Battalion
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Biography
Thomas Stevens was listed in the Absent Voter Records for Abbots Langley in Spring 1919. He was initially identified from the Absent Voter Records and was not recorded elsewhere in the Abbots Langley Parish records. In the Absent Voter Records Thomas was listed serving with the East Surrey Regiment, and his address was given at Primrose Vale, Abbots Langley.
Although not recorded in the Abbots Langley records, Thomas was listed in the Kings Langley Parish Magazine Roll of Honour, and in newspaper reports which linked him to Kings Langley. As Primrose Hill was close to the centre of Kings Langley he may have had more association with Kings Langley, than with Abbots Langley.
Thomas was born in the summer of 1895 at Rickmansworth. He was one of seven children born to George and Alice Stevens. His father, and his brothers John and Edward also served in the Great War. In the 1901 Census the family was recorded living at Rickman’s Hill, Stoke Poges. George worked as a Gas Works Stoker. By the time of the 1911 Census the family had moved to Primrose Hill, Abbots Langley. George worked as a Labourer at a local Paper Coating Mill. In 1911 Thomas worked as a Farm Labourer.
It is not known when Thomas enlisted however on 17th October 1914 he was noted in the Hertfordshire Advertiser having joined Lord Kitchener’s Army. In the Kings Langley Parish Magazine of the time he was listed as one of the men from the Parish “at home and ready or preparing themselves to take their places in the fighting line when called”.
On 22nd March 1915 he was mentioned in the Watford Illustrated newspaper, serving with the 11th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. His Medal Roll indicated that he disembarked in France on 25th August 1915, and from November 1915 he appeared regularly in the Kings Langley Parish Magazine Roll of Honour.
Thomas’ Medal Roll also noted that he was demobilised on 8th March 1919.
Although being recorded in the Kings Langley records, his birth place, his address and by appearing in the Abbots Langley Absent Voter Records, Thomas and his brothers and father are also commemorated as Abbots Langley men.
Thomas Stevens survived the War, however his brother John died from shell concussion on 29th July 1918. His father died on 11th March 1918, serving with the 15th Battalion, Royal Defence Corps at Gravesend, Kent, and his elder brother Edward, a regular soldier from before the Great War died at Richmond on 18th February 1920.
Additional Information
Formerly 1st & 8th Battalions East Surrey Regiment
Acknowledgments
Roger Yapp - www.backtothefront.org
