INGRAM Thomas Frank

Thomas Ingram enlisted in the North Staffordshire Regiment on 25th May 1904 in Birmingham. On his medical History Sheet of the same date he gave his place of birth as Bromsgrove and his age as 19 years and 8 months. He was employed as a bricklayers labourer. Thomas served in both the 1st and 2nd Battalion of the regiment before being discharged on 5th June 1907 at the end of his term of service. This was followed by 6 years as an Army Reservist.

On 1st October 1913 Thomas married Ellen Maud Hopkins in Bromsgrove. The couple already had 3 children: Elsie Maud born 2nd June 1908, Dorothy Alice May born 9th August 1909 and Ellen Josephine born 17th December 1910. According to the 1911 census, the couple had been married 3 years on census night. On 6th December 1913 Ellen gave birth to twin boys, Leonard Frank and Thomas Henry [birth registered in the March Quarter 1914.]

When war broke out, Thomas was mobilised on 5th August 1914 at Lichfield and posted overseas, arriving in the war zone on 15th August 1914. However he was transferred back to England on 29th November following admission to a hospital in the field on 27th November 1914 with a hernia. In 1915 he was treated in the Military Hospital at Woking for rheumatism. It is unclear from his pension records exactly when he was declared fit for service but he appeared to remain in England until 1st July 1918 when he embarked at Southampton bound for Le Havre, France. On 12th November 1918 Thomas was admitted to hospital in France with influenza. He was discharged from the army on 13th February 1919. The following day a medical board awarded him a pension on the basis that his hernia, rheumatism and debility were the result of his army service and had rendered him unable to work. There was also a suggestion that he was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis.

Thomas Ingram was awarded the 1914 Star, British War Medal and the Victory Medal.