SPARROW Thomas Francis

Thomas Francis Sparrow was born in Bevington Waste in 1879, the son of John and Emma Sparrow.  He joined the army in 1904 and left at the end of his contract on 31st December 1907 but remained in the reserve.  He is recorded in the 1911 census as working as a gardener.  He married Ann Clark at Throckmorton in the summer of 1913 and a son Lewis arrived the following year.  They lived at Machine Cottages Sheriffs Lench.

Thomas was mobilised on 5th August 1914, the day after war was declared, joining the 2nd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment which was part of 2nd Division 5th Brigade.  Sailing from Southampton, he arrived in Boulogne on 14th August and then travelled by train and on foot, arriving in Bougnies (about 50 miles south-west of Brussels) on 23rd August where they heard the sound of enemy guns for the first time.  It is worth perhaps noting that this journey was particularly trying as the weather was very hot and many of the troops, Thomas Sparrow included, had been civilians only 2 or 3 weeks earlier.  The Battalion then became involved in the Battle of Mons, the first major engagement of the First World War.  When it proved impossible to halt the German advance, the battalion retreated southwards reaching La Houssaye on 5th September, a distance of about 170 miles.

It is not the purpose of this record to give a detailed history of the First World War but the French under General Joffre counterattacked in what became the Battle of the Marne pushing the Germans back 40 miles.  The Worcesters played a small part.  The Battle of the Marne was immediately followed by the Battle of the Aisne which began on 13th September and in which the 2nd Worcesters were heavily involved.  The regimental diary states that “the dawn of the 20th brought a storm of shells” as the German infantry began their advance through a wood.  Thomas Sparrow was one of sixteen posted missing and was later assumed for official purposes to have been killed on that day.  The battle ended on 28th September with neither side achieving a breakthrough.  He is commemorated on the La Ferte-Souse Jouarre memorial about 40 miles east of Paris.  He was aged 35.

Birth registered as Francis Thomas Sparrow in the June Quarter 1879 under the Alcester Registration District.