Lance Corporal Thomas Algernon Wrightson
268910 11th Battalion Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regiment)
Thomas was born on 9th April 1883 at Elsham, Lincolnshire, son of Robert Charles Wrightson born Thornaby, Yorkshire and later resident of Elsham House, Lincs, estate agent, and his wife Charlotte (nee Barnes) born Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Thomas was the youngest of 11 surviving children.
In 1884, when Thomas was aged just 1 year old, his father Robert died aged 68. It seems that his widowed mother Charlotte was provided for as she is recorded on the 1891 census, still resident at New Road, Elsham, ‘living on her own means’. Her four youngest children Ada, Frederick, Grace and Thomas Algernon are all still at home, listed as scholars. Again in 1901, Thomas is still at home training as a grocery apprentice, but his elder sister Grace has a position as a domestic servant at ‘The Grange’ Ferriby, Lincs.
By or before 1907 Thomas had moved to the Nottinghamshire area, as is in 1907 he married Mary Jane Norris, a Lincolnshire girl in the Mansfield, Notts registration district. In 1911, Thomas, a shop assistant (grocery), and Mary were living in Long Eaton, Notts at 10, Waverley Street with their 2 daughters both born in Sneinton, Nottingham, Marjory Violet, born 1908 and Dorothy Grace born 1910. They later, in 1911, had a son named Robert Francis Joseph Wrightson born in Shardlow, Notts and then in 1913 Thomas Douglas Wrightson born in Nottingham. It is not clear exactly when they moved to the Jacksdale area but the first record is a note on the Absent Voters Roll of one Thomas A. Wrightson, absent from Laverick Road, Jacksdale serving with the Sherwood Foresters in 1918/1919. The next definite link is the christening of both of their sons Robert, then aged 9 and Thomas , then aged 8, on 9th May 1922 at the Pye Hill Providence Chapel, Pye Hill, near Jacksdale.
The Wrightson family has provided the photograph of Thomas in uniform with his wife and family taken in 1916. His Medal Rolls Index Card records that he was awarded the British War and Victory Medals.
Thomas settled in the Notts/Derbys area and died in 1972 at Ilkeston. All of his 4 children lived well into their late eighties with daughter Marjory Violet living until she was 100.