Photo: Clare Taylor
Paul Heatherington has submitted the following:-
Thomas was born in 1885 in Newton, Scotland. His father was George Marshman from Somerset. His mother was Sarah A who was born in Risca, Monmouthshire. This was a well-travelled family! George and Sarah lived in Monmouthshire and Newton in Scotland, before arriving in the Consett area in about 1888. In 1891, the family were living at 4 Willows Cottages, Stanefordham, Consett and in 1901 at 9 Stanefordham.
Thomas was the third child in a family of nine children. His older siblings were William, Mary and George; the younger ones were Elizabeth, Frederick, Bertie, Arthur and Percy.
On the 3rd February 1904, Thomas married Elizabeth Isabella Leath, from Medomsley, in the Shotley Bridge Wesleyan Chapel. They had three children: Kenneth (1909), George (1911) and Mavis (1914). They lived initially at 12 Stanefordham and later at Hawthorne Cottage, ShotleyBridge. Thomas worked as a steel fitter/labourer.
Thomas enlisted on the 31st August 1914. At twenty-nine years of age, he was 5’ 7’’ tall, weighed a little under 10 stone and had a chest measurement of 35 inches. He had hazel eyes, brown hair and a sallow complexion.
He served as a Private in the Royal Army Corps and died on the 21st September 1919 from pneumonia. He is buried at Tidworth Military Cemetery in Wiltshire.
Pauline Priano has submitted the following:-
Thomas Marshman, one of 9 known children, was the 3rd born of 7 brothers and had 1 elder and 1 younger sister. His father George Marshman was born in 1854 at the village of Croscombie, Somerset where he was baptised April 23rd 1854. With little possibility of work as a young man, he alone moved to Risca, Monmouthshire, Wales where he met local girl Sarah Ann born 1854. In the surrounding area there were collieries, tinplate and steel works, an iron and steel foundry, a brewery, fire-brick works and lime kilns. George easily found employment as a coal miner and by 1881 he and Sarah Jane had 2 children, William born at Risca, May 19th 1876 and Mary born December 14th 1879 in the civil parish of Panteg, where they were living at Sebastopol. A year later they had moved to Scotland where George Marshman Jnr was born, July 22nd 1882 and finally settled in England at Castleside, near Consett, where son Thomas was born in 1885 and Elizabeth, January 7th 1888. George Snr had found employment as a pitman at the steel works and William (14) as a labourer at the iron works, whilst they were living at Stanefordham, Mary and George, 12 and 8, were scholars, Thomas and Elizabeth 5 and 3, remained at home with their mother. Over the next 10 years they remained at Stanefordham and Sarah Ann gave birth to a further 4 children, Frederick 1891, Bertie 1894, Arthur 1897 and Percy, February 7th 1900. George and son William had by 1901 been joined at the steel works by George Jnr (18) and Thomas (15) working as fitters.
Sarah Ann died in 1908 aged 52 years, George Marshman Snr aged 55 years in 1909, registered in the district of Lanchester. This led to the break-up of their family. Arthur (14) was taken in by his eldest brother William and his wife Mary Jane, living at 14, Blumont Terrace, Consett, where William was employed as an engine-man hammer driver at the steel mill, who had a 5-year-old boy George William Edwards. Percy Marshman (11), in the 1911 census is listed as the adopted son of John Joseph Cuthbertson and his wife Mary Jane, who was in fact his sister. George Marshman (27) employed by the Railway Company as a porter was one of 2 boarders in the Donaldson household at 9, Loud Cottages, Annfield Plain, the head of the household Thomas Henry Donaldson was also a porter. Bertie (16) was taken in by his sister Elizabeth Ann and her husband Isaac Thompson at 7, Park Terrace, Castleside, who had 2 children, Stanley and Florence, 4 and 1-years old. He and his brother-in-law were both employed by the Consett Iron Company in 1911. Frederick Marshman (19), married for less than a year, to Elizabeth Wood Hardy, employed by a steel manufacturer as a stationary engine-man was living, listed as one of 5 boarders, in the home of his in-laws and family at 10, Palmerston Street, Consett. Thomas Marshman, who had married at the Wesleyan Chapel, Shotley Bridge, February 3rd 1906 to Elizabeth Bell (Isabella) Leath is listed in 1911 as a visitor in the home of widow Elizabeth Hurley at 7, Thorpes Lane, Grantham, West Riding, Yorkshire, occupation unknown, whilst his wife and 1-year old son, Kenneth, born May 5th 1909 at Gateshead, County Durham, were living in 2 rooms at 12, Stanefordham, Consett.
By 1914 Thomas and his wife had a further 2 children, George born May 18th 1911 and Mavis, March 26th 1913. When war was declared with Germany Thomas Marshman answered the call to arms within days, he enlisted at Consett, August 31st 1914 and posted to Scarborough, September 1st. There he joined the 11th Reserve Cavalry as Private 22730, September 10th. The 11th Reserve Regiment of the cavalry, initially formed at Tidworth trained men for the 10th and 18th Hussars, also the Hampshire, North Somerset and Wiltshire Yeomanry, however, he was discharged, October 8th 1914, under King’s Regulations 392 (iii), “not likely to become an effective soldier,” this was due to defective teeth and poor physique.
Thomas enlisted for a second time circa April 1919, assigned initially as Private S4/250504 then M2/47677 Royal Army Service Corps, Mechanical Transport and at the time of his demise was stationed at the training grounds, Salisbury Plain, South West Wiltshire.
Private M2/47677 Thomas Marshman was admitted to the nearby Tidworth Military Hospital, Cavalry Barracks, Tidworth, Wiltshire, cause unspecified in the Register of Soldiers Effects, where he died September 21st 1919. Private Thomas Marshman Royal Army Service Corps is at rest within Tidworth Military Cemetery, Wiltshire, C101A, he was 34 years of age. His widow Elizabeth of Hawthorn Cottage, Shotley Bridge Station, County Durham, commissioned an additional inscription to be added to his military headstone, it reads, “Still To Memory Dear.”
As his service was less than 6 months his widow did not receive War Gratuity but only the monies owed to him from the Army in the sum of 2 pounds 9 shillings 11 pence. Awards British War Medal and Victory Medal.
His brother Frederick Marshman also served during WW1 with the Royal Army Service Corps and survived the conflict. Although the other Marshman brothers would have been eligible to serve, the only reference to be found is a Private Bertie Marshman 8th Battalion Durham Light Infantry.
Elizabeth Marshman did not remarry, she moved to the Manchester area in Lancashire to be near her daughter Mavis, after she was married.
Her son Kenneth had joined the Royal Navy, serving aboard HMS Erringham, a cruiser which served as flagship of the Far Eastern Squadron in the East Indies between 1925 and 1932. Stoker 1st Class P/K 80136 Kenneth Marshman died of severe multiple burns whilst his ship was at G.H. Colombo, Ceylon, (modern day Sri Lanka), June 17th 1931. He was 22 years of age, place of burial not specified.
Mavis Marshman had married in 1938 in Manchester to William Hibbert, born July 24th 1914, a brewer's dispatch clerk, and in 1939 they were living at 11, Buckley Street, Borough of Manchester, in 1941 their only child William K. Hibbert was born. William Hibbert died in 1966 aged 51 years, Mavis remarried in 1971 to widower Walford James Robinson, born at Chorlton, Lancashire, November 22nd 1911. Walford James Robinson died in 1983 aged 71 years, Mavis Robinson-Hibbert nee Marshman, January 17th 2008 aged 94 years, both death registered in Manchester, Lancashire.
Details as regards George Marshman, unknown.
Elizabeth Bell (Isabella)Marshman nee Leath died in 1949 and was buried May 16th, Greater Manchester, she was 63 years of age.
It should be noted the only marriage record found for a George Marshman and a Sarah Ann was, January 26th 1889, St Simon, Bristol, Gloucestershire, brides surname Keene, however it is unclear if this relates to Thomas’s parents.
In God’s safe keeping. Rest In Peace
Thomas Marshman is remembered at Castleside on C113.01 and at Shotley Bridge on S27.01 and S27.03
