In Warlencourt British Cemetery, France is the Commonwealth War Grave of 291122 Private Thomas Edgeley Barclay, serving with the 1st/7th Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers who died 14/11/1916.
David Thompson has submitted the following:-
Thomas Edgeley Barclay was born in 1887 at Glanton, Northumberland, the eldest child of George Patterson Barclay (b.1859 in Scotland; a Master Cutter Tailor) and his wife Margaret (b.1858 in Northumberland; a Milliner who ran a small Hat Shop at Glanton with her sister).
Barclay had five younger siblings: Kate (b. 1888; who became a teacher); George (b.1890; died as an infant); May (who married a Canadian and emigrated to British Columbia); Charlie (Romaine Barclay-Kim’s father; who fought in the First World War); and Jack.
He was the husband of Jane Eleanor Barclay (née Hume; b.1881 at Snitter, near Rothbury, Northumberland). They were married in 1908.
In 1911, Barclay was a Mason and, with Jane, they were living at The Lane, Glanton with their two children, Joseph (b.1909) and Eileen (b.1910). Both children were born at Glanton. A third son, George Frederick, was born in April 1911 but died, aged 19 months, on 14 November 1912.
The family were living in Front Street, Glanton at the time of Barclay’s death. They had an inscription added to his headstone: ‘Only goodnight beloved, not farewell’.
Thomas Barclay enlisted at Newcastle upon Tyne.
The Newcastle Journal 01/08/1917 reports:
Roll of Honour
Barclay. Previously reported missing now reported killed in action on November 14th, 1916, aged 30 years, Private Thomas Edgeley Barclay, beloved husband of Jane E. Barclay, and eldest and dearly loved son Mr and Mrs G. P. Barclay, Glanton, S.O.
The Shields Daily News 04/08/1917 reports:
Pte. Thomas E. Barclay, N.F., missing since 14th November 1916, now reported killed. He was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs G.P. Barclay of Glanton
His great niece, Romaine Barclay-Kim, has penned a few short poems written in a traditional Japanese style (Haiku):
‘Panic arises,
as we near the battlefields,
unknown memory.’
When she visited the ‘Trenches of the Dead’ at Diksmuide, Belgium:
‘Against a blue sky
poppies flutter carelessly
high above our heads.
I stand within the shadows of
sandbags hardened to grey rock
and understand the meaning
of entrenched.’
On a visit to Tyne Cot CWGC Cemetery:
‘Bedazzled by row
upon row of white gravestones
youth of the Empire.
Red upon the white
schoolboys leave their offering
for their own long gone.’
Touring the battlefields, Romaine was moved to pen a Haiku on some of the farmhouses she saw:
‘Walk round to the rear
of small farmhouses to find
the harvest of the dead.
Carefully tended
these gardens of remembrance
recall where men fell.’
Although short, the simplicity of the following Haiku describes Romaine’s experience visiting her great uncle’s grave:
‘Glanton soil is poured
On Tom’s grave at Warlencourt.
Tears fall for the past.’
Her final thought on her last visit to the Western Front:
‘What sorrow and waste!
Oh! The pity of it all
for generations.’
Thomas Edgeley Barclay is remembered in Glanton on G4.03, in Whittingham on W48.01 and in the Battalion History
