Name
Thomas Henry Cotts
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
17/05/1915
33
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
13005
Bedfordshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
LE TOURET MEMORIAL
Panel 10 and 11.
France
UK & Other Memorials
Hunsdon War Memorial
Memorial Plaque St Dunstan’s Church, Hunsdon
Pre War
Born in 1883, in Holt, Norfolk, to parents Thomas William and Elizabeth and living in Station Road, Holt, Norfolk, in 1891, where his father was employed as an ironmonger’s porter. He had four brothers Arthur, Ernest, Herbert and Frederick and a sister Annie. The family were still living in Holt in the 1901 census and Thomas was a domestic gardener but in 1911 he was a lodger living in Hunsdon and employed as an under domestic gardener.
Wartime Service
Joined the 2nd Battalion Bedfordshire Regt, and arrived in France in February 1915, his unit took part in the battle of Neuve Chappelle in March and then at Festubert in May. The 2nd Beds attacked enemy lines on 17th, but were held up near the German lines by flooded ditches which they had to cross and in which some men drowned, they were forced to retire and a second attack the following day was also repulsed. It was during these assaults that Thomas was killed.
Acknowledgments
Terry & Glenis Collins
