Pte 50605 Thomas Coulton

• Age: 37
• From: Nelson, Lancs
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 30th March 1918
• Commemorated at: Savy Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: Roupy Rd. Mem. 55

Thomas Coulton was born in 1881 in Nelson the eldest son of Middleton Coulton and his wife Elizabeth (née Riddiough, spelling varies), both born in Yorkshire, and married in 1880 in Burnley. Thomas was the eldest of seven children; his siblings were James, Arthur (died at 9 months), Harold, Lizzie (died at age 1), Florence, and Alfred (died age 2).

In 1891 his parents are living at 107 Every Street, Great Marsden and Little Marsden, with three sons. His father is a letterpress printer, Thomas is 9.

By 1901 his family has moved to Lytham but Thomas remains in Nelson, and is found as a boarder at 105 Carr Road, with the Matthew family. He is 19, a printer compositor, like his father.  His parents are living in Lytham with James, Harold, Florence, and Alfred, 1.  His father manages a printing works.  Alfred died the following year, aged 2.

Thomas married Ruth Helena Cuthbertson in Nelson in 1903 in a civil ceremony.  Their son Eric Cuthbertson Coulton was born in 1904. It appears that Thomas took a job in Settle, Yorkshire (20 miles north of Nelson), as a daughter, Stella, was born there in 1908 but sadly died at 9 months old, by which time her parents were living at 39 Camden Street, Nelson. She was buried in Wheatley Lane Inghamite Chapel, Fence in Pendle. This chapel is associated with the Wesleyan Methodists and was the family chapel. Another daughter, Marjorie, was born in 1910.

The Census of 1911 finds the family at 39 Camden Street.  Thomas and Ruth are both 29.  Thomas is a letterpress printer/overseer.  Daughter Marjorie is one year old. Their son Eric is staying in Morecombe with his grandparents, uncles James and Harold, and aunt Florence.  His grandfather is a manager of a letterpress printing works.

Another son Kenneth was born in early 1916.

He enlisted in Nelson and originally served as M.T./285069, Royal Army Service Corps. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he served for 15 months, enlisting or being conscripted at the end of 1916. Following a transfer he was serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 50605 when he was killed in action on the 30^th March 1918, aged 37, during the German Spring Offensive. 

Thomas was initially declared Missing between 22nd-30th March 1918.

His wife appealed for information in the Liverpool Echo on 25th May 1918, in the Liverpool Post & Mercury on 28th May and in the Echo again on the 30th:

“Missing March 24, Private T. Coulton, K.L.R.  Information gratefully received by his Wife, 12, Bentley Street, Nelson, Lancashire.”

His death was later assumed, for official purposes, as having occurred on 30th March 1918.

As Graham Maddocks points out in his book The Liverpool Pals, the CWGC records 38 men of the 19^th Bn of The King’s Liverpool Regiment as killed in action on 30^th March 1918 when as the Battalion diary below, shown in bold type, records that the men were actually out of the line and safely on the way to St Valery- sur- Somme.

The composite battalion moved off from ROUVREL at 8.30 am at 50 yards interval between companies, arriving at SALEUX at 3.20 pm where they entrained, detraining at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME the same night. The night was spent at ST. VALERY-SUR-SOMME.

Apart from those whose bodies were not found and are commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial all but two have burial sites at Savy British Cemetery, which itself is within a couple of miles of Roupy and contains most of the identified men killed on 22^nd March 1918. Therefore, it would appear that the date of death for these men shown as 30^th March 1918 is purely an arbitrary one and that they were in fact killed on 22^nd March. 

Thomas is commemorated in Savy British Cemetery, France, where a Special Kipling Memorial reads:

“To the Memory of these 68 British Soldiers who were killed in action in March 1918 and buried at the time in the German Cemetery on the St. Quentin - Roupy Road, whose graves are now lost.”

The inscription on his headstone reads:

“IT MAY BE IN THE BETTER LAND SOME DAY, SOME-TIME WE'LL UNDERSTAND”

Savy was taken by the 32nd Division on the 1st April 1917, after hard fighting, and Savy Wood on the 2nd. On the 21st March 1918 Savy and Roupy were successfully defended by the 30th Division, but the line was withdrawn after nightfall. The village and the wood were retaken on the 17th September 1918 by the 34th French Division, fighting on the right of the British IX Corps.

Savy British Cemetery was made in 1919, and the graves from the battlefields and from the following small cemeteries in the neighbourhood were concentrated into it.

There are now over 850, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, more than half are unidentified. Memorials are erected in the cemetery to 68 soldiers (chiefly of the 19th King's Liverpools and the 17th Manchesters), buried by the Germans in their cemetery on the St. Quentin-Roupy road, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire.

The Cemetery covers an area of 2,555 square metres and is enclosed by a low rubble wall.

A year after Thomas was declared Missing, his father, living in Stanley Street, Nelson, was still seeking information.  He contacted the International Red Cross but was notified in a reply sent on 21st March 1919 that they held no records on Thomas.

His children were 14, 8, and 2 years old when Thomas was killed. His widow Ruth received Thomas’ Army effects and a War Gratuity of £6-10s. She was awarded a pension of £1-8s-7d a week from December 1918 for herself and three children.

His mother died in 1933 aged 74, and his father in 1947, at the age of 86.

In 1939 Ruth, 57, is still living at 12 Bentley Street, with sons Eric, 35, and Kenneth, 23, both reporters for a weekly newspaper.  Ruth never remarried, and died in 1954, aged 72.  

Eric married and became an editor; he died in 1963 aged 59. Kenneth pursued journalism and died in 1978 aged 62.

Thomas' daughter Marjorie married, had a son, and died in 2000 age 90.

Sadly, Thomas has not been found on any memorial.

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