BORN CAISTOR, LINCS 1880. ON ST MARKS ST ROH. WIFE HELEN. – 3 CHURCH ROW, CLEVELAND ST. HDM 29/4/18.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE THOMAS SMART 11/1127. Born in Caistor, Lincolnshire in 1880 Thomas had the hardest of starts in life, an only child he never knew his father and his mother, Esther Ann Marshall, left him with his grandparents in Hull. A Driver by trade, he married Ellen Munton in Withernsea on 28th October 1905 and the couple had two sons, Alfred and Harold. Thomas’s fate was decided by two years he spent as a Territorial soldier. When war came he was mobilised and joined the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. A reluctant soldier from the start, he was disciplined five times for overstaying passes and disappearing only to be arrested by civilian police, all during his training in 1915. A veteran of Egypt, the Somme and Oppy Wood Thomas was killed in action on 26th March 1918 when the Pals were pushed up to meet the onslaught of the German Spring Offensive; his body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 38 years old.
NOTE: GEORGE JOE SMART, RAMC – 62 WEST PARADE. WILLIAM SMART, AOC – 8 BROMPTON TER, PARK RD; & 5 SCARBORO’ ST.
