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World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Cpl. Thomas Williams
British Army 6th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders
from:Neilston, Renfrewshire, Scotland
Only through this website have I found out about my grandfather Thomas Williams. Mum didn't really know him as he died when she was 6. I've been looking into his records and information is being released like layers of an onion falling away over the last few years. I found out he was born in New Jersey. I have military records telling me this but no birth certificate.
He was 20 in 1901, he was 5'6" had grey eyes and brown hair. A slim build with a 34 inch chest and he first enlisted in Belfast, The Royal Irish Fusiliers, where he served in the Boer War. I have a short attestatiion record in his records for this. He was awarded 3 medals, The Queens South Africa medal, The Kings South Africa medal and The Kandahar medal. After his discharge he met my gran in Scotland somehow. They married in 1910 in Glasgow, my home town. He worked in a sewage work with chemicals in Dalmarnock and he and my gran, along with their eldest daughter, lived in Hutchestown in Glasgow. Formerly known as Gorbals.
Over the next few years his records show he was sent home then re- admitted to hospital. Over his last few weeks. The medical officers start to call him the man in his notes. Not a patient or a soldier but a person. He had an honorable discharge by then. They say he looked Gravely Ill, he had several tumours, one on his neck and they drained it but they discovered it had revealed deep vessels. He died of massive haemorrhage on 11th of November 1922. Mum stayed with her brother, sister and mother till 1928 when she lost her mum as well. You will understand there wasn't much for mum to tell. She used to say he was an Irish American and even now I can't figure out how this young man who was born in New Jersey, America, moved back to Ireland, met and married my gran and died in Scotland.
I am so proud of him and I am a great grand mother myself. I am now paying my respects to him every November. I thank the poor house medical staff who were there for men like my grandad. RIP Grandpa
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