Name
Thomas Hatfield Evans
18 May 1881
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
26/04/1915
33
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Australian Infantry, A.I.F.
3rd Bn. Machine Gun Section
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Searched but not found
Mentioned in Despatches
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
SHRAPNEL VALLEY CEMETERY
Sp. Mem. A. 9.
Turkey (including Gallipoli)
Headstone Inscription
LATE OF HUYTON & BOVINGDON, HERTS. IN LOVING MEMORY
UK & Other Memorials
St Lawrence Church Memorial, Bovingdon,
Individual plaque, St Lawrence Church, Bovingdon,
Memorial Hall Plaque, Bovingdon,
Father's grave, Bury, Lancashire
Pre War
Thomas Hatfield Evans was born on 18 May 1881 in Huyton, Lancashire the son of Thomas and Alice Stewart Evans (nee Hatfield), and one of four children.
He was initially educated at Sedbergh School, Lancashire but on the 1891 Census he was a boarder at St Michael's College in Tenbury, Worcestershire, which was a boys preparatory school.
His father died in July 1898, aged 54 and is buried at Bury, Lancashire.
Thomas joined the Imperial Yeomanry as Private 12011 at Leicester on 26 February 1900 and fought in the Boer War. He was then discharged on his return from South Africa on 1 July 1901 receiving medals for Cape Colony, South Africa and Rhodesia with clasps.
On the 1901 Census, his mother was 'living on her own means' at St Agnes Road, Huyton with Roby, Lancashire with his sisters Annie and Mary, his cousin Marianne and three servants.
By the 1911 Census, his mother had moved to Honor’s Mead, Chesham Lane, Bovingdon where she was living on private means with three servants and three other family members (Census record is damaged and largely unreadable).
Thomas left for Australia in May 1913 where he worked as a machine agent. He was said to have been a keen sportsman, an athlete and an exceptionally powerful swimmer and first class shot. He was engaged to be married to Miss E Davies of Double Bay, Sydney, Australia.
Wartime Service
At the outbreak of the war Thomas was living in Australia and enlisted at Randwick, New South Wales on 3 September 1914 as a Sergeant. He served with the 3rd Battalion, Machine Gun Section and embarked from Sydney, New South Wales on board HMAT A14 Euripides on 20 October 1914. He was promoted to 2nd Lieutenant on 1 January 1915.
He was killed in action, aged 33, on 26 April 1915 at Gaba Tepe, Gallipoli during the landing when he personally disabled an enemy machine gun and then attempted to carry a wounded man back to the trenches despite being hit several times. He was recommended for a V.C. and was mentioned in dispatches for this last action.
He is buried at Shrapnel Valley Cemetery (Special Memorial A.9), Anzac, Gallipoli.
Additional Information
Probate was granted to his mother Alice Stewart Evans and William Frederick Gorst, solicitor, in London on 18 September with effects of £14,565 9s 8d.
Thomas is named on the gravestone of his father Thomas who died in 1898 and it states that he was "killed at the Dardanelles whilst in the act of carrying one of his wounded men to safety".
Acknowledgments
Jonty Wild, Brenda Palmer
Malcolm Lennox, Dick West. www.findagrave.com, www.aif.adfa.au., livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk
