Thomas James Songhurst

A Corporal with A Company, 8th Bn. Thomas died on 11th of May 1917 at the age of 24. 

Thomas was born at Lowestoft in 1892, a son of Richard and Rosina Songhurst. In 1901 his family lived at 29 Stanford Street and this was still their home in 1911 when Thomas worked as a brewery labourer. 

On 19 January 1913 Thomas married Elizabeth Brown at Saint Margaret's Church. Thomas was a labourer living at 29 Stanford Street, and Elizabeth lived at 2 Saint Margaret's Plain. 

Thomas volunteered and he enlisted in the Army at Lowestoft. He joined the Suffolk Regiment and served in France with the 8th Battalion from 25 July 1915. By mid-1917 he was a Corporal with A Company. 

On 11 May 1917 the 8th Battalion moved from support trenches at the Hindenburg Line to reserve positions: A Company at Earl's Court; B and C Companies at Grey Trench; and D Company in the Hindenburg Support Trench. The battalion's war diary does not record details of any casualties for 11 May but medical admission records show that Thomas received shrapnel wounds to his back and abdomen. He was admitted to 55 Field Ambulance where he died from his wounds.

Later Elizabeth lived at 23 High Street, Dunbar.

Thomas and Elizabeth's son, also named Thomas James, was born at Lowestoft in 1913. During World War Two he served in the Royal Navy and died in the loss of submarine H.M.S. Simoom in 1943.