Thomas James TREVERTON

‘Earby Chronicles’ (Spring 2014) - the quarterly newsletter of the Earby & District Local History Society

FROM OZ TO KELBROOK TO THE SOMME
A short story about Pte Thomas James Treverton of the East Lancashire Regiment 1st Battalion 4th Division.

Several months ago I obtained a memorial copy of the book “Craven’s Part in the Great War”. In the roll of honour listings I came across an entry for Private T.J. Treverton, East Lancs Regiment; of Back Waterloo Road, Kelbrook, died of wounds 12th July 1916.
This entry intrigued me as my wife and I live in Waterloo Road and ‘Back Waterloo Road’ historically formed part of three properties which were at that time back to back dwellings. On researching Thomas’s origins we found a remarkable story, of travel and then an all too familiar sad ending in WW1.
Thomas James Treverton’s family originated in Cornwall. Sometime before 1880 his then unmarried mother and father, namely Thomas Lewis Treverton and Mary Ann Bonney arrived in Lancashire. They married at Wigan Register Office on the 18th March 1880, Thomas Lewis’s occupation is given as a coal miner. Between their marriage in March1880 and October 1883 they immigrated to Australia. It is quite probable that they worked their passages, as no definitive outgoing passenger or landed immigrant records have, so far, been found. Establishing themselves at the Wallaroo Mines near Daly South Australia, their first two children were born. At a point between 1885 and 1887 the family moved to Queensland where the next three children were born, this included Thomas James. Unfortunately two of the boys born earlier died in childhood. The family’s lives must have been extremely difficult in this developing period in Australian history. Prior to October 1893, and almost ten years to the day since the first Australian child was born, Thomas James, his mother and siblings return to England. Again there is no definitive record of the family as incoming passengers, and it is, once more, likely that the father returned separately whilst working his passage. On the 8th October 1893 a final child was born to Thomas Lewis and Mary Ann in the Gannow Lane area of Burnley.
In 1899 Thomas James, his mother and siblings were then living on Claremont Terrace in Earby (this terrace is believed to be the one adjacent to the old Earby police station and is also known as Club Row). On the 23rd December 1899, his mother, who was declared a widow, was remarried at Skipton Register Office to a Rochdale born man named William Humphreys who lived on Rostle Top Road. In the 1901 census the family were shown living at two numbered properties on Claremont Terrace. Occupations of the family workers were given as cotton weavers and a cotton spinner who was 13 years old.
In the years leading up to the 1911 census the family became extended, with Thomas James married in 1908 to Sarah Ann Johnson a Derbyshire born girl living in Colne. As a consequence the family moved to a larger property at Sough Bridge Kelbrook. The occupations were noted as cotton weavers and Thomas James as a slater’s labourer.
Now to the sad part in Thomas James’s short life:
Along with many thousands of other soldiers in WW1 Thomas James Treverton’s service records were lost in the London blitz fires of WW2. The following are extracts from records that survived within the regiment and local records of the time.
As a member of the 1st Battalion 4th division of the East Lancashire Regiment he may well have received his fatal wounds during the first days of the Battle of the Somme. During this first phase, regiments sent forward suffered in excess of 57,400 casualties to extreme machine gun fire. It is recorded that the 1st battalion engaged to the north of Beaumont Hamel, and out of 700 officers and men, only 237 answered the subsequent roll call. Wounded soldiers were transported to field hospitals which consisted of converted hotels, chateaux and military tents. It is here at Etretat in the Seine/Maritime region that Private Thomas James Treverton died of his wounds. He is buried along with many of his comrades in the WW1 military section of the Etretat Churchyard. He was survived by his wife Sarah Ann and two children Lewis and Mary Elizabeth Treverton.

As a footnote to this short story: Thomas James’s oldest sibling sister Beatrice who was born at Wallaroo Mines South Australia, and subsequently lived and married in Kelbrook, emigrated to the USA. Her mother Mary Ann, a widow for a second time followed her in 1929, for her a life’s journey at the age of 69 had gone from Cornwall to Lancashire to Australia to Lancashire to Yorkshire to Lancashire and finally to the USA. Wow!

[Courtesy of the author, Colin Dalby]