DRIVER THOMAS HALLIWELL
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
24TH APRIL 1918 AGE 20
BURIED: LA CLYTTE MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Such a simple inscription - 'We loved him'. And who were those who loved him? As one of the seven surviving children of Thomas and Mary Elizabeth Halliwell, he was loved by his parents and brothers and sisters Jane, George, Henry, Margaret, John and Charles Halliwell.
The Halliwells lived in Wigan, Lancashire where in 1911 Thomas Halliwell senior and his three oldest sons all worked underground in a coal mine. Thomas senior was a hewer and George, Thomas junior and Henry were all trammers. Trammers were the men who pushed the 'trams', wheeled carts carrying the coal, along the rails away from the coal face to the surface. It was hard, exhausting work. In 1911 George, Thomas junior and Henry were 14, 13 and 11.
Halliwell served with "D" Battary, 87th Brigade Royal Field Artillery and was killed in action on 24 April 1918 at Kemmel during the Battle of the Lys. It seems to have been rather a long time before his parents were informed.
Wigan Observer
27 July 1918
A NEWTOWN DATALLER KILLED
The parents of Dvr. Thomas Halliwell, of the Royal Field Artillery, whose home is at 11, Stanley Street, Newtown, have been notified that he has been killed in action. Dvr. Halliwell, who was 20 years old and single, enlisted in March last year. He was last employed as a dataller at the Garswood Hall Collieries.