Thomas Henry Nagle
The soldier:
Thomas Henry Nagle enlisted in to the army in Norwich, Norfolk. He was assigned to the Royal Army Service Corps (ASC until it got its ‘Royal’ prefix in 1918) and given regimental number S/4/05843. The ASC was responsible for transporting men, weapons, ammunition, equipment and rations during WW1 and at its peak numbered over 315,000 men.
Later, he was transferred to Princess Charlotte of Wales’s (Royal Berkshire) Regiment and given regimental number, 39014.
He was ‘killed in action’ on the 19th September 1918, at the age of 26, whilst serving in this regiment’s 5th Battalion.
His name is inscribed on Panel 7 of the Vis-en-Artois memorial, Pas de Calais and on both Snettisham’s memorials and ‘roll of honour’.
The man:
Thomas Henry Nagle was born on the 2nd December 1892 in Snettisham, Norfolk. His mother was Mary Anne Nagle (nee Bussey) who had also been born and raised in Snettisham.
Thomas had two older siblings; Alice Anne (bn. 15th September 1886 in Silvertown, Essex) and William J (bn. 19th December 1888 in Oldbury, Staffordshire). The 1891 census, just before Thomas’s birth, records them as living in Snettisham with Mary Anne as the ‘head of the Household’.
In the 1901 census, the family are living in ‘Back Street, Snettisham’, William has now left home and Thomas is 9. Mary Anne is now 38. She remains both ‘married’ and ‘head of the Household’ and her occupation is listed as ‘charwoman’.
Thomas attended Snettisham school (still existing as Snettisham’s primary school) from the 1st June 1900, alongside his siblings Alice who had attended from 1st June 1893 to 22nd December 1899 and Willie (William J) who had attended from the 20th June 1895 to the 28th November 1902.
By the 1911 census the family were still living in Snettisham. Thomas Henry is now 18 and has left school. His occupation is listed as ‘Bakers Assistant’. Alice has left home, but William James, now 22 has returned and is working as a ‘farm labourer’. Mary Anne is shown as having been ‘married’ for 26 years. Mary Anne’s mother, Anne Bussey, a 76 year old widow is also now residing with the family.
The school records for Thomas, Alice and William all contemporaneously record their father as ‘William’. However, there is no record of the marriage or clear indication from the census’s or other records of his involvement in the family.
Following his death, Private Thomas Henry Nagle’s personal effects and medals were sent to his mother, as his sole next of kin. Mary Anne’s address at the end of the war was 3, Plantation Cottages, Snettisham. Mary Anne Nagle’s death was registered in Fakenham in early 1942.
Thomas’s sister Alice married James Neal in Docking, in early summer 1916.
His brother William, married Florence Marion Williamson in early 1918 and went on to live until he was 104, dying in 1993 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
