Brant Argyle Cemetery, Manitoba

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

The only son of Irish road labourer Matthew Smyth and his South Shields born wife Jane Weatherly, Thomas was born on 1st November 1890, shortly after the family had moved from Tynemouth to Hebburn. His mother died when he was three years old and he was brought up by his older sisters, Mary Ann, Sarah, Matilda and Isabella.

Aged 18 he left England in April 1909 to join his sister Mary Ann and her family then living in Manitoba, Canada, and he found work as a general labourer. On 18th January 1915 he found himself in Walkerton, Ontario enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and he became Private A/2617 attached to the 34th Battalion and sailed to England with their first draft of men in June 1915, where on arrival at Shorncliffe Camp, Kent he was attached to the 11th Battalion.

In August he was part of a reinforcement draft sent to join the 1st Battalion CEF and fought with them in France and Belgium, until he was killed in the trenches near Mount Sorrel on 28th April 1916.

Thomas Smyth is remembered in Hebburn on H93.12 and H93.35

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance, and on a memorial in Brant-Argyle Cemetery, Manitoba. (Photo courtesy Argyle Museum)

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual War Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Smyth