First World War Memorial, St Margaret’s Church, Oxford

Ernest William Noel THOMAS (1895–1917)

© Images & Voices, Oxon County Council

Ernest William Noel Thomas was born at 142 Kingston Road, Oxford on Christmas Day 1895, the son of William Arthur Thomas (born in Bicester in 1864, registered third quarter) and and Florence Lucy Trinder (born in Cirencester in 1869, registered third quarter). His parents were married in the Hastings registration district in the fourth quarter of 1894 and had six children:

• Ernest William Noel Thomas (born at 142 Kingston Road, Oxford on 25 December 1895 and baptised at SS Philip & James Church on 8 March 1896)
• Mary Florence Thomas (born at 142 Kingston Road, Oxford on 5 June 1898 and baptised at SS Philip & James Church on 17 July 1898)
• Kathleen Lucy Georgina Thomas (born at 142 Kingston Road, Oxford on 12 September 1900 and baptised at SS Philip & James Church on 11 November 1900)
• Sybil May Thomas (baptised at SS Philip & James Church on 5 July 1903; died aged one in the first quarter of 1905)
• Janet Alice Thomas (baptised at SS Philip & James Church on 16 October 1904; died in the fourth quarter of 1904)
• Marjorie Annetta Thomas (born at 142 Kingston Road, Oxford on 8 December 1906 and baptised at St Margaret’s Church on 27 January 1907).

Ernest’s father William Thomas was a brewer’s commercial traveller (and described as a beer & whisky vendor at his daughter’s baptism in 1904). His parents moved to 142 Kingston Road, Oxford (which until 1896 was in SS Philip & James parish) around the time of their marriage in 1894. They were living there at the time of the 1901 census with their first three children and a domestic servant.

In 1905 the family had moved to a nearby house at 80 Kingston Road in St Margaret’s parish. The 1911 census shows them there, and Ernest (15) was now an apprentice chemist.

In the First World War Ernest William Noel Thomas served as a Second Lieutenant in the 6th Battalion of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He was killed in action in France at the age of 21 on 20 November 1917 and has no known grave. He is remembered on the Cambrai Memorial, Louverval (Panel 7) and on the war memorial outside St Margaret’s Church in north Oxford.