145th Company, Machine Gun Corps (Infantry)
Thomas John Grinnell was born in St Paul’s, Cheltenham in the third quarter of 1891, one of five children born to Frederick and Frances Emily Grinnell. At the time of the 1911 Census the family lived at 55 Brunswick Street, St Paul’s, Cheltenham but may have subsequently moved to 4 Hungerford Street and later to Spring Bank Cottage, Hester’s Way.
Prior to the war Thomas was employed, as a plumber, by Edmund Alfred MacVitie, Plumber of 2 Portland Street and was a member of the Territorial Army, serving as a machine gunner, as 1972 Private Grinnell, in the 1/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment. He volunteered for overseas service and went with the battalion, on its posting to France on 29 March 1915. He later transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and was allocated the number 23939. Whilst in Belgium, with the 145th Company at the Battle of Third Ypres, he was severely wounded and invalided back to England, where he died in St Luke’s War Hospital, Halifax, Yorkshire, on 13 June 1918, aged 26
He is buried in Cheltenham Cemetery, where a CWGC headstone marks his grave. He is commemorated on the Cheltenham Town War Memorial and that at St Paul’s Church, St Paul’s Road. There are photographs of him in The Graphic of 29 June 1918 and in a group with the 4th Cheltenham Boys’ Brigade Football Team on 4 December 1909.
His father served as an Army corporal in the war.
In 1913 Thomas married Ethel Violet Pitcher and the couple had two children, both born in Cheltenham.
Researched by Graham Adams 22 January 2013
(Acknowledgement to ‘Leaving all that was dear – Cheltenham in the Great War’ by Joe Devereux and Graham Sacker)