2nd Battalion, Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
Unfortunately, very little documentary evidence of Thomas Wilcox’s time in the Army has survived.
Thomas William Wilcox was born in 1892 at Milton-under-Wychwood, which is a village about six miles from where he is buried, over the border into Oxfordshire. His father was William Richard Wilcox (1862-1937), a farm worker and his mother Eliza, née Randolph (1867-?). The couple had four children, born between 1891-1903 and possibly one stepson. Thomas appears to have lived all his life in Milton-under-Wychwood and at the time of the 1911 Census was living at the family home at The Tavern in the village, where he was a waggoner on a farm.
A recently released Pension Record Card for Thomas notes that his dependent was his mother, who was living at The Tavern. However, when the CWGC Register was compiled in the late 1920s/early 1930s the family address was given as 16 Great Barrington.
In the absence of any Army Service or Pension records it has not been possible to ascertain when Thomas joined the Army but he has a Medal Rolls Index Card, which shows entitlement to a Victory and British War Medal, which does indicate that he saw active service abroad, from 1916 onwards. The chances are that he was conscripted sometime in 1916 or 1917.
His entry in the Medal Rolls, for the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry (OBLI), shows that initially he was part of 11 Garrison Battalion, OBLI and thereafter in the 2nd Battalion. According to British Regiments 1914-18 by Brigadier E A James the 2nd (Garrison) Battalion was formed at Portland in July 1916 and went to France that month, becoming the 11th (Garrison) Battalion on 13 July 1918. The 2nd Battalion had been in France, as part of 5th Brigade, 2nd Division, since August 1914. It was fully involved in the actions in the last months of the war and it was possible during these that Private Wilcox suffered his wounds.
It is known from the Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects that Thomas died, on 17 December 1919, aged 27, in Shorncliffe Hospital, near Southampton. In those days, with limited treatment and no antibiotics wounds could take a long time to heal and on occasion necessitated several operations, which, in the end, a body was unable to survive. This may have been the case with Thomas, as he would have experienced very many months in hospital.
It is something of a mystery as to why, Thomas, who had lived his whole pre-military life in Milton-underWychwood, came to be buried at Great Barrington. Possibly his parents had gone to live there by the time of his death or that he had been a worker on the Great Barrington Estate. No report of his funeral has been discovered in a local newspaper of the time, which features in the on-line British Newspaper Archive. Private Thomas William Wilcox’s grave is marked by a standard CWGC headstone.
Researched by Graham Adams 14 May 2021