Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
The oldest son of coke inspector Thomas Dent and his wife Isabella, Thomas was born on 26th June 1888 and baptised in Hunwick before the family moved to Marley Hill, Whickham later in the year. Moving from Colliery Row to live in Factory Row, March 1911 saw Thomas sailing from Middlesbrough to Portland, Maine, USA and then crossing the border into Canada. Making for Saskatchewan Thomas applied for a Homestead Grant in June 1912 and farmed east of Hillmond.
December 1914 saw him in Winnipeg enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force where he became Private 81218 of the 32nd Battalion. Naming his father in Marley Hill as his next of kin he embarked with the Battalion on 23rd February 1915 on the SS Vaderland and with them was based at Shorncliffe Camp, Kent, where they were redesignated as a reserve battalion. Whilst at Shorncliffe he made out his will leaving everything to his father, including one horse, four cows, two heifers, a wagon, a sleigh, a plough and the farm.
Transferred to the 5th Battalion in France at the start of May 1916 he would have joined them in the trenches at Hill 60; at the end of June they were on salvage work as brigade support and Thomas received a shrapnel wound to his left arm. Treated initially at 12 Casualty Clearing Station and then at 20 CCS he didn’t return to duty for a week, and then was promoted to Lance Corporal. The end of June saw Thomas on a grenade course, followed by one on bayonet fighting and in August one on the new Stokes mortar.
Back in the trenches near Courcelette on 8th September 1916, the battalion suffered under very heavy shell fire all day and there were a number of casualties of whom one fatality was Lance Corporal Thomas Swinburn Dent.
Thomas Swinburn Dent is remembered in Marley Hill on M34.01 and M34.06
In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and also on the Manitoba Historical Society War Memorial, and the Saskatchewan Virtual Memorial.
Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Lance Corporal Dent
