SHAW, Thomas Herbert

Lieut. Thomas Herbert Shaw

Lieutenant, 7th Batt., Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
Died: 08/08/1917
Age: 21

Remembered on Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial
Remembered on family memorial in Bangor Cemetery

Thomas Herbert Shaw was born in Strandtown, Belfast, on the 28th February 1895. He was the fifth of seven children of David Shaw and his wife Isabella Graham Shaw (nee Cahoon).

Thomas's father was a successful merchant and the family lived on the Earlswood Road in the east of city where they are recorded in the census of 1901 and also of 1911 by which time Thomas is recorded as working in the linen trade.

Thomas enlisted in the 6th Royal Highlanders (Black Watch Territorials) – apparently under the name of Thomas S. Shaw – with whom he went to France, entering there on 2nd May 1915. He received a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers on the 12 June 1916 – While his Medal Index Card records his rank as Lance Corporal the London Gazette records it as Private. He was then gazetted as Lieutenant on the 28th December 1916.

According the the Battalion War Diary, they where located at Square Farm on the 7th August when there was an "Intense artillery fire by Germans all along the British front... Our casualties 8 O.R.s wounded, these slight casualties being due to the enemy not having got our front line range accurately. One M/G at H.Q.'s was destroyed and two temporarily put out of action… The situation became normal again about 9.45 p.m."

With regard to Thomas, the Diary records that "2nd Lieut. & A/Lieut. T.H. Shaw and Sgt. Carroll, both of 'B' Coy, during this bombardment in moving forward to their front line of shell holes and old trenches (German) presumably lost their bearings and wandered into the German lines, where presumably they were captured."

Thomas was later recorded as having been killed on the 8th August.

Portrait photo courtesy of Graham Conway http://www.buxtonwarmemorials.co.uk