On the Vis-en-Artois Memorial to the Missing, France is the name of 38805 Private Thomas James Bainbridge serving with the 2nd Battalion King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry who died 23/08/1918.

Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-

Thomas James Bainbridge was born October 1898 in Broompark, County Durham, one of 7 surviving children, 5 boys, 2 girls and 2 deceased born to James Raine Bainbridge (1868) of Bowden Close, County Durham and his wife Mary Diane Pinkley (1872) of Tow Law. In 1911 the family was living at 36 Newcastle Street, Brandon where James worked as a coal miner-hewer.

The military record of Thomas James was one of many destroyed during the blitz of WW2, we do know however that he enlisted in Consett and was initially assigned to the Training Reserve Battalion as Private 81841, later serving in France as Private 38805 Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 2nd Battalion which saw action on the western front and participated in what is known as the Advance To Victory. His battalion participated in the Battle of Amiens, the Somme and the Second Battle of Noyon during that period.

Private 38805 Thomas James Bainbridge was killed in action August 23rd 1918, he was 20 years old and single. His sacrifice is recorded on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial to the Missing commemorating over 9,000 men who fell in the period from August 1918 to the date of the Armistice in the Picardy and Artois area and have no known grave. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal which were sent to his father who also received all monies due to Thomas James as sole beneficiary.

1918 was a year of great sadness for the Bainbridge family as less than 4 months after the death of Thomas James news was received, in the December, that his brother, John William, serving in the Royal Field Artillery had died during his service in Egypt, Mary Diane, their mother, also passed in the December of 1918. Thomas James’s younger brother Charles Henry Bainbridge also enlisted and survived the conflict, he died, March 1956, in County Durham. Their father James Raine Bainbridge died in 1939 aged 71 years.

In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace.

Thomas James Bainbridge is remembered at Craghead on C120.01 and C120.04