|
|
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this site please consider making a donation.
Site Home
Help & FAQs
Features
Submissions
Information
Advertisements
World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Pte. Thomas Hopps
British Army 20th (1st Tyneside Scottish) Btn. Northumberland Fusiliers
from:Binchester, Co. Durham
(d.1st Jul 1916)
Before the war, Thomas Hopps (1891-1916) worked at Westerton Colliery. At age 27, just before the war broke out, he married Florence Robinson. He joined up with a Pals' Battalion in 1915 - the 20th Northumberland Fusiliers (1st Tyneside Scottish).
Four of these battalions made up the 102nd (Tyneside Scottish) Brigade. While an application for kilt or trews was rejected, they were granted pipe bands and use of the Glengarry cap, with a small patch of tartan to be added behind the fusilier's badge after the soldier's first action. The CSM joked that if enough of them got killed the survivors could club together to make a kilt from the remaining patches.
At Christmas 1915, they were granted their first home leave but reported back to barracks a day late. Although it looks like this was a genuine administrative error, it was decided to make an example of them anyway and they were placed in the first wave of the Battle of the Somme on the 1st July 1916. After two huge mines were exploded in the sector, they were sent over the top at 7.30am to attack the fortified village of La Boiselle, across 3km of open ground in the face of withering German machine gun fire. By 8 o'clock there were just a handful of survivors. The Tyneside Scottish suffered the worst casualties of any brigade that day. The 1st Battalion (about 800 men) lost 584 men, the 3rd lost 537 men while the 4th Battalion lost 629. All four battalion commanders were killed. In total, the British lost 5,000 at Ovillers; the Germans only 280.
As they went 'over the top' each company was played over by their pipers, and they played on as they advanced into a deadly crossfire from machine guns. In a matter of about 10 minutes some 80 per cent of the leading battalions had become casualties, including all four Tyneside Scottish Battalion commanders and 15 out of the 16 company commanders. Many senior NCOs had also been killed or wounded. One old soldier remarked, 'It took twelve months to build our battalion but just twelve minutes to destroy it'.
The body of Thomas Hopps was found at Trench Map reference 57d X14, to the north of La Boiselle. He was exhumed from a temporary grave with a wooden cross that he shared with an unknown corporal of the Middlesex Regiment and reburied at Ovillers Military Cemetery XIII. F. 4. He is also commemorated on a plaque ('Pvte T. Hopps N.F.') in Whitworth Church, in the grounds of Whitworth Hall.
His name appears on the Somme Roll of Honour.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did your relative live through the Great War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial?
If so please let us know.
Do you know the location of a Great War "Roll of Honour?"We are very keen to track down these often forgotten documents and obtain photographs and transcriptions of the names recorded so that they will be available for all to remember.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Great War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of The Wartime Memories Project is run by volunteers.
This website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
The Wartime Memories Project Website
is archived for preservation by the British Library
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved -We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.
