Cpl 22807 Thomas Rushton

• Age: 21
• From: Simonswood
• Regiment: MGC
• Died on Tuesday 20th March 1917
• Commemorated at: London Cem Neuville-vitasse
  Panel Ref: III.C.10

Thomas Rushton was born in Simonswood, Lancashire on 21st June 1895, the eldest son of Robert Rushton and his wife Elizabeth (née Aindow). He was baptised in St. Swithin’s R.C. Church, Gillmoss, on 29th June 1895. His father was born in Ince Blundell, and his mother in Freshfield, Formby. They married in 1891 and had seven children (per 1911 census), only six of whom have been found in birth records and on censuses. Thomas had an older sister Annie, who was born in Ince Blundell in 1893, after which his parents moved to  Simonswood, where Thomas, Elizabeth 1896, Margaret 1898, and Ellen 1900, were born. They had moved to Waterloo/Crosby by 1904, where John Robert was born. 

The 1901 census finds the family living at Rigby’s Farm, Simonswood, where his father is a farmer/employer; they have four children. Annie is 7, Thomas is 5, Maggie 3, and Ellen, 9 months old.  Ellen died not long after the census, before her first birthday. 

The 1911 Census shows the family nowliving at 10 Worthing Street, Blundellsands, a terraced house five streets from the beach.
His father, 42, is employed as a carter, his mother is 43.  Annie, 17, is a domestic, Thomas, 15, is a shop boy, Elizabeth, 14, is at home, no occupation, Margaret, 13, and John Robert, 7, are at school.

He enlisted in Liverpool joining the 20th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 23819. The amount of the War Gratuity and his Regimental number suggest he enlisted in November 1914, when he was 19 years old.

Formed in November 1914 the 20^th Battalion were originally billeted at Tournament Hall, Knotty Ash before on 29^th January 1915 they moved to the hutted accommodation purposely built at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 20th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain.  

He achieved the rank of Acting Corporal, and shipped to France with his battalion, disembarking at Boulogne on the 07th November 1915.   

At some point he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps (89 Coy). The MGC Infantry Branch was formed in October 1915 by the transfer of battalion machine gun sections to the MGC. These sections were grouped into Brigade Machine Gun Companies, three per division. The 89th Machine Gun Company joined the 89th Brigade, 30th Division in March 1916.  They were in action during the Battle of the Somme, in which the Division captured Montauban.  In 1917 they took part in the pursuit of the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line.  

The retirement took place between 9 February and 20 March 1917, after months of preparation.  German troops moved into their new positions, laying waste to a vast zone of French countryside in which orchards were felled, villages razed to the ground, bridges blown, and roads and railways torn up.  The German retreat shortened their front by 25 miles, freeing 13 to 14 extra divisions for the German strategic reserve. 

Thomas was killed in action on 20th March, 1917, aged 21. Thomas was buried with two other men from his MGC Company.  (The Graves Registration Report gives his regimental number as 22081, later amended.) After the war, when graves were concentrated, the bodies were removed and reinterred 

Thomas now rests at London Cemetery, Neuville Vitasse in France at III.C.10. 

The London Cemetery was made in April 1917 and greatly extended after the Armistice when graves were brought in from other burial grounds and from the battlefields between Arras, Vis-en-Artois and Croisilles. London Cemetery contains 747 WW1 burials and commemorations, 318 of the which are unidentified. 

Thomas was reported killed in the Liverpool Daily Post 23rd April 1917

Machine Gun Corps - Rushton, 22807, Act. Cpl. T.

Thomas earned his three medals. 

His father Robert received his Army effects and a War Gratuity of £11-10s. 

The pension card in the name of his mother Elizabeth, at 48 Mersey View, Blundellsands, shows that she was awarded a pension of 9/- a week  from December 1917.   

By 1939 his father has died, and his mother, 73, and sister Margaret, 40, are still at 48 Mersey View, (a flat above a shop, up Holden Road from Crosby Beach). It is not known when his mother died. 

Thomas is commemorated on the following memorials-

St. Nicholas, Blundellsands

Great Crosby & Blundellsands Memorial.

We currently have no further information on Thomas Rushton, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.