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SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
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"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"
2720 Private THOMAS WILLIAM GILL
4th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment.
Killed in action, on the 2nd of May 1915, aged 34.
Born at Thirsk, N Yorks. Enlisted at Newcastle on Tyne.
Residing at 10 Wharton St, North Skelton, N Yorks.
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The Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
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FAMILY.
Thomas was born in the first quarter of 1881 at Thirsk, N Yorks.
1891 - He is living in Long Street, Thirsk
His father, William, aged 37, is a Labourer and a native of Thirsk. His mother is Mary, aged 30.
He has 2 brothers, Frederick, 10, Herbert, 3 and 2 sisters, Gertrude, 8 and Dora, 1.
1896 - Thomas' mother, Mary, died aged 34.
1901 - The family is still at Long Street.
Thomas, aged 20, is working as an Iron Turner.
William, the father, is recorded as a Widower and employed as a Mechanics Blacksmith.
Little Herbert and Dora have possibly died, as there is no mention of them and a new sister has arrived, Edith, age 9.
1911 - Thomas Gill is lodging at a shop in 10 Wharton Street, North Skelton with William and Bessie Young, who are Confectioners and natives of Devon.
Thomas' father, still at Thirsk, has remarried Mary from Ilkley, Yorks. She has 4 children from a prior marriage and they now have two more of their own.
Thomas' brother, Fred, has married in 1902 at Thirsk, Clara Clark from Skelton. They are living at 44 Scarth Street, Lingdale, N Yorks with their 3 children and a boarder.
WAR SITUATION.
The 4th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment were part of the 150th Brigade, 50th (Northumbrian) Division.
Thomas' Medal Card shows that he was an early Volunteer for service in the War and almost certainly served in the local Territorial Force before it started.
He must have signed enlistment forms to serve abroad at Newcastle, when the 4th Yorks Battalion were in training there in the winter of 1914/15.
He arrived in France when the Battalion first went on the 18th April 1915.
At the time of Thomas's death the Battalion was just in the second week abroad and fighting in the Second Battle of Ypres to prevent a German advance, where Gas was used for the first time.
Full details based on the Battalion War Diary can be read starting here.
MEMORIAL:-
Thomas is commemorated on the Menin Gate, Ypres, which bears the names of around 55,000 UK and Commonwealth men who died in the Ypres battles and have no known grave.
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