Pte 13188 Thomas Llewellyn Redpath

 

In 1901 the family lives at The Jallow, Maughold, with two children.  His father is a general agricultural labourer, Thomas is 5.

 

They are at the same address in 1911, and have four children. His father, 42, is a general labourer, his mother is 38.  They state they have been married for 13 years. Thomas is 15, also a general labourer, Maggie is 12, Ellen 8, and Elizabeth seven months old.  Also in the household is a boarder, John Redpath, 73, a widower, possibly his grandfather. 

 

He enlisted in Douglas on 24th or 25th August 1914 (information published in the local newspaper, “The Boom in Recruiting - Still they come and more yet needed”).  He would have been 18 years old.  He served as Private 13188, 11th Bn, King’s Liverpool Regiment, and arrived in France on 19th May 1915.

 

At some point he was posted to the 20th Bn K.L.R. and subsequently to the 17th Bn.

 

Thomas was listed as Missing in Action on 28th March 1918, aged 22, during the German Spring Offensive.

The Battalion diary gives an insight into the events of the day:

28^th March 1918

FOLIES – MEZIERES – ROUVREL

10.00am Enemy attacked our immediate front but was driven off – Half an hour later enemy was seen in large numbers through ROUVROY to WARVILLERS. About 11 am orders were received tha the Battalion would be relieved by 133^rd French Division. The relief was carried out shortly after noon, after a message had been received by telephone that the French were satisfied with the position and that we were to withdraw at once.  

4pm The enemy were then in BEAUFORT. The Battalion assembled at MEZIERES and marched to ROUVREL to billets arriving about 6.30pm.

Thomas has no known grave and is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France.

The POZIERES MEMORIAL relates to the period of crisis in March and April 1918 when the Allied Fifth Army was driven back by overwhelming numbers across the former Somme battlefields, and the months that followed before the Advance to Victory, which began on 8 August 1918. The Memorial commemorates over 14,000 casualties of the United Kingdom and 300 of the South African Forces who have no known grave and who died on the Somme from 21 March to 7 August 1918.

The cemetery and memorial were designed by W.H. Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930.

The Ramsey Courier on 17th May 1918 reported:

"We regret to learn that Private Thos. L. Redpath, of the King’s Liverpools, has been missing since March 28th.  He joined up in August, 1914, and has been three years in France. He has been through considerable fighting, and has passed through unscathed.  He lived with his mother, Mrs. Redpath, at The Jallow, Maughold, and was previously a labourer at Lonan.”

 

His parents were still seeking news of their son nine months later, in a List of “Still Reported Missing” published on 28/12/1918 in the Isle of Man Times, asking returning soldiers to contact relatives if they had any information. 

 

It was over fourteen months after he disappeared that his death was presumed to have occurred on or since 28th March 1918.

The Ramsey Courier on 6th June 1919:

“Mr. and Mrs. Redpath of The Jallow, whose son, Pte. Thos. Llewellyn Redpath of the 17th, King’s Liverpool Regiment, was posted as missing on March 28th, 1918, have received information from the Infantry Record Office, that as no further news has been received, it is concluded that their boy was killed in action on the date stated.  Pte. Redpath, who was 21 years of age, was with the 30th Division when the great, but ill-starred, German offensive was launched last year, and with many others, gave his life in the struggle to frustrate the enemy’s last bid for victory.  Great sympathy is felt with the young man’s parents and members of the family, who for the last year have been hoping against hope that he would turn up as a prisoner of war.  Miss Margaret Redpath, sister of the dead soldier, has been working with the Q.M. A.A.C. [Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps] and has just been demobilised.”

 

Thomas earned his three medals.  

His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £21 went to his mother. The pension card, showing his mother’s address as The Jallow,  Maughold, does not specify the amount of pension awarded.

His parents later lived at the Pink House, Maughold.  

 

His mother died in 1951 aged 78 and his father in 1961, at the age of 93.

 

Thomas is commemorated on the following Memorials:

Manx National War Memorial

Parish of Maughold WW1 Memorial Stone in Maughold Churchyard

Isle of Man Roll of Honour