RIFLEMAN WILLIAM HAROLD THOMAS
THE KING'S (LIVERPOOL REGIMENT)
12TH SEPTEMBER 1916 AGE 22
BURIED: HEILLY STATION CEMETERY, MERICOURT-L'ABBE, FRANCE
Others may have died for their family, or God, King and country but Rifleman Thomas died "fighting to save a world's morality". The lines come from 'To You Have Have Lost', a poem by John Oxenham, the pseudonym of William Arthur Dunkerley (1852-1941). The poem comes from his book '"All's Well!" Some Helpful Verse for These Dark Days of War', which was first published in November 1915 and by May 1917 was in its eighteenth edition.
The poem, especially the first two verses, is the source of many headstone inscriptions and appears as a dedication on war memorials throughout Britain. These are the first two verses:
I know! I know! -
The ceaseless ache, the emptiness, the woe, -
The pang of loss, -
The strength that sinks beneath so sore a cross.
" - Heedless, and carelss, still the world wags on,
And leaves me broken ... Oh my son! my son!"
Yet - think of this! -
Yea, rather think on this! -
He died as few men get the chance to die,
Fighting for God and Right and Liberty; -
And such a death is Immortality.
In 1911 William Herbert Thomas was an apprentice marine insurance clerk living at home with his parents and six siblings in Bootle, Lancashire. He served with the 6th Battalion the King's Liverpool Regiment and was killed on the Somme in September 1916.