Private Tom Lockyer
9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment
Died of Wounds
Date of Birth: 1885
Place of Birth: Withycombe Raleigh
Date of Death: 20 July 1916 aged 32
Buried: St. John in the Wilderness Churchyard, Withycombe Raleigh; remembered on Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Memorial Window, Teignmouth, Devon
Awarded the 1914-15 Star, The British Medal and the Victory Medal
Private Tom Lockyer age 32.
Born in 1885 in Withycombe Raleigh Tom was the son of Edmond and Ellen Lockyer.
The 1901 census showed him living with his parents at Withycombe Raleigh working as a gardener.
In 1907 he married Ethel Stroud Studd, daughter of William and Bessie Studd of Bitton Road, Teignmouth.
The 1911 census showed him living with wife Ethel and daughter, Beatrice aged 2, at 18 Willey Lane, Teignmouth and working as a gardener.
Tom was serving with 9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, service no. 15319, and entered into the war in France on 6 October 1915.
The following year he was with his regiment when he was wounded at the Somme on 1 July 1916, he received a bullet in the thigh, but further injuries occurred from shrapnel whilst he was lying waiting to be rescued.
On 14 July the Teignmouth Post reported he was at the military hospital in Guildford, Tom died of wounds there on 20 July 1916. Buried at St. John in the Wilderness Churchyard, Withycombe Raleigh; remembered on Seafront Memorial and St. James’ Memorial Window, Teignmouth. A gratuity of £56 was paid to next-of-kin, his wife.
Grave Inscription reads: “He who gave for us his life, lives in glory now on high”.
The 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment
Devonshire Regiment
cap badge
The 8th and 9th Battalions of the Devonshire Regiment were formed in 1914 from war-time volunteers.
After very little training they landed at Le Havre in France on the 28th July, 1915 and moved to the Front in August 1915.
The men had only a very brief experience of trench warfare when on the 25th September 1915, the British Army launched a massed attack against the German defences, this was later to be known as the Battle of Loos.
At the Battle of Loos both sides used poison gas as a weapon.
Men preparing for a gas attack © IWM (Q 51650)
This was the first time that the British used poison gas.
After they released the gas the wind changed and a green blanket of gas, dust and smoke as high as a two-storey house covered some of the British troops, it was very difficult to see anything, some men had terrible difficulty breathing and others died later because of the damaging effects of the gas.
'The gas hung in a thick pall over everything, and it was impossible to see more than ten yards. In vain I looked for my landmarks in the German line, to guide me to the right spot, but I could not see through the gas.'
Account by George Wilfred Smith, 2nd The Leicestershire Regiment, to his fiancée.
Before the men left the safety of their trenches and went 'over the top' to capture the enemy positions the Gunners would often fire a huge artillery barrage to shatter the enemy's barbed wire and other defences and kill defending troops.
German barbed wire entanglement © IWM (Q 4593)
In this battle the artillery barrage had not cleared all the barbed wire, so the Devons had to cut their way through whilst the Germans fired machine-guns at them.
The 8th and 9th Devons were battalions with 1000 men in each unit. In a single day they had more than 1000 casualities and 500 men died or went missing.
Casualties at the Battle of Loos on the 25th September 1915 were the worst in a single day for the British army, with some 8,500 dead.
The Battle of Loos lasted from 25th September to 15th October, 1915.
The First Day of the Somme
On July 1, 1916 the 9th Devons, with the 8th Devons in support, headed the attack on the German front line near Marmetz.
The British artillery had bombarded the German Lines in preparation but this had failed to destroy machine-gun positions.
A German machine gun crew, probably of the 18th Infantry Regiment, manning their Maxim machine gun. © IWM (Q 87923)
As the 9th entered No Man’s Land many of them were cut down by rifle and machine-gun fire.
The 9th Devons had started the day with 775 men but by the end of it 204 of them were killed (or missing) and 267 were wounded.
Of the 8th Devons 50 men were killed or missing.
The division secured Marmetz by the end of the day.
Tom Lockyer of Teignmouth was wounded on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme, he died of wounds on the 20th July 1916.
